There are many ways to play this fun song as part of a guitar ensemble.
- You can mute the strings and just do the strumming. To do this, touch the strings lightly with your left hand, and move your right arm up. You can see on the top right video where my arm is moving up. Slow the video down to get used to the upstroke strumming.
- You can play the chords! To do this, you need to get your chord changes up near about 20 in a minute. You can play three string or six string versions, those are shown below, stick to the versions you’ve looked at with me.
- You can sing and play the chords
- You could also play the bass part. That’s in the bottom right square. I’d suggest you stick to the part you’re most used to.
How to prepare to play this song: practice your timed chord rounds – play A to D, D to E and A to E. Either do a minute of each, or just do 12 x each.
Then make sure you can do the upstroke strumming – you can do this muting the strings first. Then combine them. Slow down the videos if you need to, so that you can follow my right hand in the top right video and play at the same time as me. There is one video where I’m counting to help you know which chord you’re on. Use that video first, and then when you can follow that, try following the video with no counting and see if you can keep your place in that one.
With counting
Without counting
Six string shapes
Three string shapes
