Hey guys, what’s up? It’s Aaron. The lesson I want to do tonight is called 3AM by Matchbox 20. If you have not heard this song before, it sounds like this, so that’s what you’re going to be learning the lesson today. And there’s another picking part. Get that part. You’re going to be learning that so before I get in this lesson, there’s one thing I want to mention. That is lesson for a long time and the list of songs to teach.
But, recently I had a kid send me a message saying that he wants to learn this for his friend’s mom. I guess she’s sick in the hospital. But his name is Ben. I hope I pronounce this right, Ben Spalling. He probably and actually he didn’t tell me not to mention his name, so there is my disclaimer. But he’s from Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, and basically he did this kind of, I guess he got my attention, to teach this song. But I thought it was pretty cool, and even if I don’t know you Ben, if you’re watching this, it’s a pretty, pretty big thing to do. And you know hopefully maybe it will inspire some other people to donate to charity I guess.
But he did to the Breast Cancer Foundation so that’s pretty cool someone to give him a kind of shout out because he really didn’t ask for any recognition. I think that’s when people deserve the most recognition. So, alright, we’re going to get into this. It’s a pretty simple song to be honest with you. We’re on standard tuning. Capo’s on the first fret.
So the chord you’re going to use, there’s G, fourth finger G, middle finger goes here, low eastern third fret, A string, pointer finger second, and then your ring and pinky are on the third fret, now these two down here. So, this is your G. That little intro is going to go down, up, down, up and then and switch to the C and nine, which all you do is move these top two fingers down, so from here. So down, up, down, up. Move these top two fingers down the string, there’s your C and nine. So G, so from G, it’s down, up, down, up, switch to the C and nine, down. And the first time after that, you’re going to play the A string open and hammer your pointer finger on to the second fret in the A string, then D string open. So, it’s in the tab. It’s on the info box and I’ll stress out.
The second thing is this G again and you’re going to play just the bottom three strings. Alright, the first, second, and third strings which is your high E, you B and your G. So first one is, after that intro, you do that little, just pull apart the down, up, down, up, down, but this time you do it a little different. I think you would actually do it four times, but the strum is kind of sounds like this… down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down.
So slow as I can go. G, down, up, down, up, switch to G, or to C and nine, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, back to G, get it four times. This is the third time… the fourth time. And you just do that one C add nine and then you’re going to pull this roof. And all that is, is you’re going to play the A string open, hammer on the second fret, and you play the D string open, hammer on the second fret, and you play the G string open.
After you play that, it goes into you know “She said it’s cold outside”, and so it’s like and then you go into the, “She said it’s cold outside and she hands me the raincoat”.
Now in between these parts, whenever he’s actually singing, what Rob Thomas does is he actually has a D chord, and he just plays the D string, which is your one, two, three, four string up from the bottom. This is the play. D, G, B, high E, B, G, D and then acts of play, the tabs that you should just play this D1, so you come back up, so the tab says you put. I just put a D twice when I come up so I play. Now, whenever you go back through that D the second time, you come up and then I’ll do it again. When you come back to this high E, you take your ring finger or your middle finger off so that high E is open. And you come back up to B, G, then when you play the D that last time, you play an open hammer on the second fret and right back down, to an open G string. And that’s starts it right back in. So it kind of sounds like this, then you go, but you can first see it from the tab.
So that is repeated through verses one and two. On the tab it says G to C add two, it’s actually C and nine. It says a few times. It’s four times I believe before you actually do this over. Now sometimes in the tab, it says for the verse, it says the G to C and nine, and then it says open, hammer on second fret on the A, I agree with that. It says open hammer on the second fret with the D, I agree with that. But the next note it shows is an open G and I actually don’t like that. I like the open D. so I like it like this. That’s how I think it sounds instead of this. I think it sounded like that at the very beginning, but throughout the first I think that it sounds like this, like that. That’s what I think it sounds like. That’s all on the tab.
Then after the third down, I’ve put a chorus. He just goes down through the D instead of doing it twice like he does in verse one and two. He does it twice as long as he goes, like that. It’s in the tab. Check it out.
The chorus, it says, “Baby, it’s 3:00 AM, I must be lonely”. This goes from a G, D to a C and nine. So that’s G so down, up, down, up, down, switch to a D. Play that D just one down strum. And whenever you actually got o your C and nine, you hear this note? You can hear that in the song too. Really that’s just that pinky finger coming down from the second fret where it does in the D and down to the third fret whereas you go to the C add nine. So when I play it, it looks like this… ok, so it’s just down, up, down, up, down, down, pinky comes on here to the C and nine. So G, down, up, down, up, down, to the D, down, C add nine, down.
Good luck to this one. I hope this lesson helps you out. And I hope you guys, can learn this all right. So you know Ben, I hope this lesson help you. If it doesn’t, Ben send me a message and if it doesn’t help, for the rest of you guys, and I hope you guys too, so put in on the comments or something like that. But, Ben I hope this helps you. And hope your friend’s mom gets better. So take care, guys. See you.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services