1,2,3,4 by the Plain White T's Guitar Lesson
Messed up there on one note, but that’s the intro to the song and I’m repeating the last song next, it’s the song 1, 2, 3, 4 by the Plain White T’s. I’m gonna have a two part lesson. The first lesson’s gonna be the intro riff, which is also the outro riff, you just play the same riff twice for the outro. And then also the first lesson, it also gonna include the verse, chorus, strum pattern, all that. The second one is gonna be the solo. Solo is pretty repetitive, it’s not really difficult. It probably take I guess an hour or so to practice and you will get if you’re, you’re a beginner. Alright, so, 1, 2, 3, 4 by the Plain White T’s, and you start out, okay. Now, one, one thing that I’m wanna tell you guys in this lesson is you can actually bar, if you’re going to a riff like this, you know, okay, you can actually bar with this finger if you don’t wanna do the whole, you know, okay. I, I want you guys to try unbarred if you can, if not, you can just use your pointer finger, but, any note that’s played on the 7th fret, you’re gonna play it with your pointer finger, okay. Any note that’s on the 9th fret is gonna be played with your ring finger. Any note that’s gonna be on the 10th fret is gonna be played by your pinky finger, okay. So, the first three notes, what I want you to do is, I want you to bar across the bottom three strings, okay, with your pointer finger, okay. Like I said, if you don’t want to bar this, you can just pretend I’m not seeing bar, just put your pointer finger there, okay. But the first note is actually played with your pinky on the 10th fret of B string, okay, this note. This pinky is on the 10th fret of the B string. So you play 10 on the B string, take the pinky off and you’re playing 7th fret, okay, so the bar or the pointer finger is covering the B string on the 7th fret. Those are the first two notes, okay, so, on the B string, 10 – 7. Then you go back to that 10 note again with that pinky on. So you play on the B string, 10 and you play 9th fret on the string above it which is your 3 string, alright. That’s 9th fret, so the first four notes are 10 on the B string 10 – 7, second two notes, 10 on the B string, 9 on the G string, okay. Then after you played that 9, you’re gonna play 10 on the B string, take the ring finger off and you’re gonna play 7th fret on the G string, okay. So you have, 10 – 7 – 10 – 9 on the G, 10 on the B, 7 on the G, okay. Then you come right down to this B string with your pinky finger still on the 10th fret you play 10 – 7 on the high E which is covered if you have that bar. Okay, so 10 on the B, 7 on the high E, 9 with the ring, 10 with the pinky. You wait a second, you play 10 again, then you can move your fingers off, I like to do it like this, put a pointer finger on the 10th fret of your high E and the ring finger here on the 12th fret of the high E, and you play 12, pull off, 10 for the last three notes, is you play, 12 and that second note is coz by this finger pulling down, I’ve got really thick calluses coz I play all the time. If you’re a beginner, you might have some troubles with the pull off, but remember you’re pulling down, alright, you’re pulling away from the neck. You’re not pulling up, no. You flip it up you’re pulling down, okay. So, our little intro there is this. Something like that, timing will be little off. That’s the intro riff, and that’s also the outro. As far as the chords go, there’s basically four chords that you’re gonna need, unless there’s some in the bridge, let’s see. Yeah, we’re using four chords, alright, the four chords we’re gonna use is the D chord, and this is in standard tuning by the way, standard tuning, no tape or anything. So it’s, D chord is the first one, okay. I want you to play your D with your pointer finger here on your three string, one, two, three, which also your G string. Pointer finger 2nd fret on your two string, which is your B string, you’re gonna put your middle finger 3rd fret on the high E, your middle finger’s on the 2nd fret, okay. That’s your D chord, now the second chord you’re gonna move to in this progression of the song is an A chord, alright, so you’re gonna go D – A – B minor, back to A. Now, what I want you to do, is I want you work on something that I like to call common fingers, alright, some people call it anchoring, I call it common fingers, because when you go from this D chord, alright, to your second chord is an A. Some people have you playing A like this, I hate that way, because this pointer is pushed all the way to the top of the fret and it’s really for it to start rattling, if you’re not pressing it that hard. So when you’re in that D chord, here’s what I want you to do, you’re pointer finger’s on the 2nd fret of your G string, that’s your three string, I want you to pick the other two fingers up, leave that pointer finger there, so your pointer finger on the 2nd fret of your three string, your middle finger comes down on the 2nd fret of your D string, your four string. And then below the pointer on your string down, your two string, right here, your middle finger sneaks in there behind the 2nd fret, okay. Now I want you to practice to going back and forth you realize that all you have to do is lift this two fingers up, bring it over here, and this ring can slide up, okay, so this two fingers never come off the strings if you watch. This one stays at exact same place as it is in the D. This one just slides up after this middle finger comes over here, so you get your D. That’s your A, that’s how I recommend you play the A. But the third one is a B minor, okay, kind of tough bar chord for some people. The one thing I want you to focus in the B minor, just focus on getting your ring and your pinky on the middle strings, your D and your G string on the fourth fret first, okay. Once that ring and pinky are there, then your middle finger’s gonna fit right there on the third fret of your B. after you have this three fingers in place, then you put the bar down, don’t put the bar down and then try to put the, I want you to focus on from your A, okay, get your A chord, this two fingers are already kinda right next to each other, so when you play your A, you just want take this two, boom, right down the 4th fret, middle strings, then your middle finger goes on, and your bar goes on last. Okay, so that’s your bar chord, this is bar across the 2nd fret, this middle finger’s on the 3rd fret in your B string, and this two are on the middle string, 4th fret at your B minor chord, and it goes back to an A. You can play an A, like this or you can play the bar, okay. I want you to play like this, if you can, coz it’s gonna help you from D to A. Now, so that’s basically the chord bridge, it goes D, and it repeats, okay. So, like we just how we got to the A from the D, this move over here, and this slides up, at the end of the chord progression and you’re on an A chord, you got to go back to the D. So the same thing, just reverse, you slide this finger down from the 2nd fret on the B string to the 3rd fret, pointer finger stays same place, middle finger lift it up and put on the high E, 2nd fret, okay. So that’s the kind of tips for that chord progression, I’m just gonna go D. And that’s the strum pattern in the whole song, alright, and that strum pattern is, in the D chord, okay. Let’s see, down – down – up – up – down – up – down – down – up – up – down – up, back to your A, down – down – up – up – down – up – down – down – up – up – down – up. Write it down if you can’t pick it up in your head, rewind the video, write it down, but it’s the same for each chord. Start in the D, down – down – up – up – down – up, do it twice, down – down – up – up – down – up, switch to your A, down – down – up – up – down – up – down – down – up – up – down – up, B minor, back to your A, okay. So, that’s your chord progression, D to A to B minor to A, D to A to B minor to A. So once you do that through the chord progression through twice, you get to the part that says, you make it easy as easy as 1, 2, that’s the pre chorus, okay. And that you make it easy, is just the G chord, but you play the same strum pattern, down – down – up – up – down – up – down – down – up – up – down – up, as easy as to an A, down – down – up – up – down – up – down – down – up – up – down – up, then you get in the chorus.