Mark Lincoln - The Story of Me Guitar Lesson

In this lesson I'm going to teach you how to play my song entitled "The Story of Me" which is a tune that I wrote about seven years ago. The story contained within is fictitious in nature but does reflect some of the thoughts and feelings that I was contending with at that time. This is an example of a song that was born from a single melody line that I came up with in my sleep, and couldn't get out of my head when I awoke. I took the melody and continued to play around with it until I found the chords and words that accompanied it best. In this lesson I'll show you how to take a simple melody line and find the chords that should accompany it, as well as turn that into a pretty cool rock and roll song!

There are some who believe that a composition should be initially derived from chords and that without the initial chords to begin with, you are essentially lost. But what happens when you come up with a really cool melody line that you just can't seem to get out of your head? How do you find the "right" chords to accompany it and then where do you go from there? I'll show you how I did it in The Story of Me.

Here is the initial melody that I woke up with one lazy morning and couldn't seem to get out of my head:

E|--------3------5s7-----5-3-5-3---|
B|---5-----------------------------5--|
G|-------------------------------------|
D|-------------------------------------|
A|-------------------------------------|
E|-------------------------------------|

E|---------------3---------------------------|
B|----------3---------5----3--------3---5-|
G|-----4------------------------4-----------|
D|-------------------------------------------|
A|-------------------------------------------|
E|-------------------------------------------|

The melody was simple enough and it seemed that maybe, just maybe I could find some chords and make a tune out of it. I figured out that the notes I was using were E-G B A-G-A-G-E, B-D-G-E-D-B-D-E as indicated in the tab above.

I knew I could start with an E major chord but I didn't want to go directly to a B-chord at that point, it just didn't sound right! So I experimented with some other chords to see what might fit and found that D-major worked great for the second chord in the progression although I couldn't figure out why it worked so well and then....it came to me! B is in the key of D which made it the perfect chord for the B-note to be played over the top. And further, B minor is the relative minor of D so that turned out to be the best chord for the next step in the progression. So now I had the first three chords of the progression and A major, well, it just seemed to fall right into place as the next chord (and it has the E-note in its scale as well which is a prominent part of the melody line). I simply played a number of chords until I found the ones that seemed to fit well with the melody at hand. Subsequently, I found the "right" chords to accompany the haunting melody I had uncovered in my dreams. Here are the chords we'll be using for The Story of Me beginning with the verse chords that we just discussed:

E
E__________|_____0_____|___________
B__________|_____0_____|___________
G_____1____|___________|___________
D__________|_____2_____|___________
A__________|_____2_____|___________
E__________|_____0_____|___________

D
E__________|_____2_____|___________
B__________|___________|_____3_____
G__________|_____2_____|___________
D__________|_____0_____|___________
A__________|_____X_____|___________
E__________|_____X_____|___________

Bm
E__________|_____2_____|___________|__________
B__________|___________|_____3_____|__________
G__________|___________|___________|_____4____
D__________|___________|___________|_____4____
A__________|_____2_____|___________|__________
E__________|_____X_____|___________|__________

A
E__________|_____0_____|___________
B__________|_____2_____|___________
G__________|_____2_____|___________
D__________|_____2_____|___________
A__________|_____0_____|___________
E__________|_____X_____|___________

C
E__________|_____0_____|___________
B_____1____|___________|___________
G__________|_____0_____|___________
D__________|_____2_____|___________
A__________|___________|_____3_____
E__________|_____X_____|___________

Em7
E__________|_____0_____|___________
B__________|_____0_____|___________
G__________|_____0_____|___________
D__________|_____0_____|___________
A__________|_____2_____|___________
E__________|_____0_____|___________

G
E__________|___________|_____3_____
B__________|_____0_____|___________
G__________|_____0_____|___________
D__________|___________|___________
A__________|_____2_____|___________
E__________|___________|_____3______

The following four chords (E, D, Bm and A) can be played over the four verse chords as well by another guitar player to add thickness and variation:

E (13th fret)
E__________|______0_____|__________|_________
B__________|______0_____|__________|_________
G__________|_____13_____|__________|_________
D__________|____________|_____14___|_________
A__________|____________|_____14___|_________
E__________|_____0______|__________|_________

D (10th fret)
E__________|_____10____|___________|_________
B__________|_____10____|___________|_________
G__________|___________|_____11____|_________
D__________|_____0_____|___________|_________
A__________|_____X_____|___________|_________
E__________|_____X_____|___________|_________

Bm (7th fret)
E__________|_____7_____|___________|__________
B__________|___________|___________|__________
G__________|___________|___________|__________
D__________|___________|___________|_____9____
A__________|_____7_____|___________|_____9____
E__________|_____7_____|___________|__________

A (9th fret)
E__________|_____X____|___________|__________|___________
B__________|__________|_____10____|__________|___________
G__________|_____9____|___________|__________|___________
D__________|__________|___________|_____11___|___________
A__________|__________|___________|__________|____12_____
E__________|_____X____|___________|__________|___________

Please play through all of the above chords and make sure that you have a good feel for them. If you want to, you can play through the verse chords, E, D, Bm and A while humming the melody to see how the melody line works played over the top.

The Boom
Many of you have heard me use this term when it comes to using your voice to gain momentum and power during a certain portion of a song. The Story of Me is no exception to this rule as you can use your vocals to really accentuate the chorus and/or bridge of the song to make it more dynamic. Watch me for more on this in the video and I'll show you how to add power and intensity during a given portion of a song.

->Please open the song chords and lyrics in the supplemental content<-

Well, there it is! Play along with me in the video or play the melody line that we discussed over the verse chords and see how it works for you.

Strum Patterns
Strum patterns for this song are as such: Intro and verse chords are strummed using or down down-up-down down up-down down-up-down and played using snap strums or continuous types of strums where indicated by the symbol "-".

The chorus chords are strummed using or down down-up-down-down up-down down-up-down (over the C chord), down down-up-down (over the Em7 chord), and or down up-down down-up-down.

The bridge chords are strummed using or down down-up-down-down up-down down-up-down during all four of the chords in this section. If you're confused about the notation and how it applies to the actual strumming, watch me carefully in the video for more insight.

Instrumentation
Although the original recording is not currently available for you to hear at this time, the members of the band tried some fairly different and experimental types of instrumentation during the lead break. During the first part of the break we used classical guitars to fill in some of the space and during the C Em7 D portion of it we used a cello part. The cello added some interesting and very different tones to the feel of the break and allowed us to break away from the everyday and sometimes overused guitar lead break. Keep this in mind as well when you're doing some of your own recording as there's always room for experimentation and thinking outside of the box when it comes to innovation and recording.

Vocal Parts
During the bridge of the song there is ample room to allow for various and esoteric vocal parts including the use of call and response and rounds. These types of vocalizations can add a lot to a recording and help fill in dead spots in recordings, as well as make the overall sound more interesting to the listener. Watch me in the video as I experiment with some of these vocal tricks and think about how you might use them as well with The Story of Me.

Hammer-ons
Many of you have commented that you've noticed me using hammer-ons when I'm strumming chords and there's no question about it, you're right! I often incorporate hammer-ons even if it's simply one note within a chord as I'm strumming. Hammering onto one or two notes can add a little bit of flair to simple chords and a little fun for the guitar player as well. Keep in mind though that using hammer-ons is not essential to the integrity of this song and will not change the over-all sound if you opt not to use them.

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