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Hey guys. I want to do another basic lesson on picking within chords. I think this is something that is really simple to do. If you can do a chord then you can pick within a chord. And it really ends up sounding cool. And it’s one of the things that I really enjoy doing even now. After playing for two years and learned some good stuff. You’ll also realize that a lot of songs that sound like they have complex picking patterns are all picked within chords. Not all of them, but about 90 percent in my personal opinion. Take the song, You’ll Think of Me by Keith Urban. I’m sure you may have heard it if not then it doesn’t really matter but the thing I want to show you is if you watch my fingers, I go from a G... to a D… to an Em... to a C … so if it don’t do it right there, they can do a G…. to a D… to an Em to a C… then you can do this song. You just have to use the picking pattern. But this is basically I’m going to get to the picking pattern real quick. What I want you to focus is not so much this hand but this hand. Just watching how simple the transitions are… Okay, so basically if you noticed I got from the G… to the D… to an Em… to a C… for the main riff.
Another easy song picking within the chords is Time of Your Life. Okay, you notice… sounds kind of complicated but really the first two measures were the same four finger G… then next one was a Cadd9. That’s all, this is also the good time to introduce you to the Cadd9. It’s basically a variation of a C chord. All of this is the G chord, fourth finger G, and you move these top two fingers down. So with the Cadd9 your middle finger is on the third fret of your A string which is your second string down… your pointer finger is on the second fret of your third string down which is your D string… and then your ring and pinky are on the high E and D third fret down here… okay? So you have your G… for two measures to the C… to your D… okay. One thing just like from this, it’s from the G to the D that ring finger is your common finger, it’s the same way from the Cadd9… to your D.
So now that I’ve shown you these two little riffs, I want to just basically show you what I mean by picking within the chord. All I mean by picking within a chord is there’s different ways you can do it. There’s something called arpeggiation, where you just play every note… you can pick down all the way through the strings… and all the way back up. That’s in the G, go to the Cadd9, we just start about… go into D… okay? That’s picking within the chord. And that’s called arpeggiation.
Now, if you’ve ever heard of the song Behind Blue Eyes. The Limpbizkit did a cover of it. After the, who sang it originally, but Limpbizkit’s cover is just from Em to a G. It sounds like this… so even if you’re extreme beginner, I don’t want you to shy away of something because it sounds like it has picking. I want you to, the first thing to realize, when I look at this song is of course picking within a chord is I look at the song and I say, ok it’s got picking but the first end you strum it so the strum, the song Good Riddance Time Of Your Life by Green Day. It’s got this picking pattern… When I first started with that song, I didn’t pick it. I just didn’t make sure I had the right chords so we go… so you get the strumming down… and the strum pattern doesn’t matter. What you want to do is once you have the right chords… then you’re ready to go … and pick within that chord.
So that’s the message I want to get to you right now is when you hear a song even if they strum the whole song you can always pick within it. Try to think of a good song, left out of my head and I can’t really think of one, but let’s just go with the chord progression. The first one I taught you in the basic chord video. Let’s go with the G… to a D… to an A… to an E…okay. Now, all I’m going to do is once you get that movements down… you can pick within the chords. And there’s one thing I want to emphasize right now that may be a little confusing to you is what certain chords you have, you pick certain strings okay. The note, the name of the chord is usually based of the base note. So if you have an E chord, the reasons it’s got the E is because its base note is an E chord, okay? So if you have your E chord here, you noticed you play the 6th string… the low E, that’s an E note. So you play this…that’s an E chord. Think of your G chord here. When your low E string… the first note above an E is an F… and then you have an F# and G… so when you’re hot on the low E string, your G string… or your G note… is actually the, on your low E string, third fret. So when you have the G chord, you’ll notice this middle is on the third fret of your low E. It’s a G chord. Okay? The rest of it below it does mean something. It’s all has something to do with music theory between a major chord and a minor. Okay, now you’ll look at a D chord, okay? And you might think, well if it’s a D chord, why is it called an E, because the low E note. When D chord, you’re actually always supposed to play the bottom four strings… in a standard D major chord, ok. So if you think about it and you’re only playing the bottom four strings, what is the tuning of your third sting down, ok. It’s the D string. So that’s your D chord… Okay, you might think of an A chord, you might say okay, when A chord should it be called E note. With an A chord, you’re just supposed to pick the bottom five strings. And what is this second string down from the top? It’s your A string. That’s what’s an A chord. …okay?
Another common chord is your C chord. With your C chord, you play the bottom five strings as well… and if you’ll look on this A string three steps above the open A... you have A, first fret…would be an A sharp third fret, second fret would be a B… third fret would be a C… so note that ring finger is on the third fret of your A string… it’s a C chord. Now, I said all of that to say this. Certain songs, certain chords use different strings for their base notes. The easiest way that I can say is with all open chords, if it’s a G chord… or it’s an E chord, then you’re going to play all six strings, okay? So on G chords… whether it’s a Gm, a GM or E chords, whether it’s an EM or an Em, you’re going to strum all six strings, okay? If it’s an A chord, if it’s a C chord, if it is any other chord than a D, a D is the only chord for purposes right now. Whether it’s a DM, Dm, D sustained any of those D named chords. Those are just the bottom four strings… so all the other chords in between those are going to be five strings. So you play the A string down… so it’s C chord… Am… A … I’m sorry… etcetera. So remember that picking within chords. If you’re playing D chord you only pick the bottom four strings… if you’re picking a G or an E, you pick all six… but if you’re playing any other chord whether it’s a C, whether it’s a Cadd9, whether it’s an A, whether it’s a B, you’re only going to play the bottom five strings… so I hope that helps guys. Check out the website. If you found this video on YouTube, check out the website. And I hope that helps you guys with picking within chords. Take care.