How to Play Small Town USA by Justin Moore

Hey! What’s up everybody, it's Aaron Gallagher at freeandeasyguitar.com. This lesson right now is going to be on a new song by Justin Moore called Small town USA. The capo is on the 2nd fret if the guitar is in standard tuning. If you don’t have a capo, I’m going to show you some bar chords you can play. Then I’m going to teach at one way and then show you some tips to play it other ways as well. So for all of you have a capo, we’re going to start that way. So take your capo, your guitar is in standard tuning and this is E if your first string is tuned to A, D, G, B and E and put your capo on the 2nd fret. Now the chords you’re going to play for this are very simple. There are only three chords. There’s an E. Now remember, this is an E chord based on the location of the capo and musically, if you’re going play this note on a tuner, it would actually be an F#m chord because without the capo, it would be this. [Demonstration] So musically, it's an F#m chord but for purpose of this lesson, it's a capo of 2nd fret and then the E formation. That’s your first chord. So the intro—I actually put the first verse. [Demonstration] So the chords you’ll notice, there’s an E chord. The E chord is where you take your middle finger, you put on the 2nd fret in you’re A string. Your ring finger goes in the 2nd fret above the capo and your D string, and your pointer finger comes up here on the 1st fret in your G string. So you got—this string is open, your next string is the 2nd fret with the middle, the next string is the 2nd fret with the ring, and the next one is pointer finger and then these bottom two strings are open. Okay, this is an E chord relative to the capo. So that’s the first one. [Demonstration] The second chord you’re going to do to the verse is a B chord. A B chord is a bar chord where you bar the bottom five strings with your pointer, index finger and then your ring finger, you get a kind of bend it weird. This knuckle is lock and this one is kind of bend the other and you want that to cover your two, three and fourth string because they are numbered one, two, three, four, five, six. So your two, three and fourth string on the 4th fret above the capo. That’s a B chord. If you have trouble with the bar chords and you don’t like the B chord, do this. From your E chord, take your pointer finger off and take your middle finger off so your ring finger is all you have left. It’s on the 2nd fret of your third string down from the top so that’s your D string. I want you to slide that up to the 4th fret then I want you to put your pinky finger right down behind it on the 4th fret there. So your two middle strings on the 4th fret by your ring finger and your pointer finger. Then take your pointer finger and bar down—sorry your ring and your pinky. The pointer finger is barred down in the 2nd fret. That’s a B suspended chord. The only difference between a B chord and a B suspended chord is that this string are here, this is your B string. In the B suspended chord is just kind of by that bar where as in the B bar cord, it's covered up here. So the first chord is an E. In the second chord if you can play it, play at B bar chord. If you can’t play at B bar chord, then play that bar across above five strings and you take your ring and pinky and put them on the 4th frets of the two middle strings. So that’s a B suspended chord but it’ll substitute for the B for this purpose. If that bar has giving you problems, take it off all the strings then put it down just at the tip of your pointer finger holding down right here on this note, you’re A string. So then, that chord looks like this. It's not going to sound the same completely but it’ll work for the song. So the key to get from that E chord up to this chord, is that you remember this ring finger, it does not come off that D string. So you start here, take your pointer off, take your middle finger off and slide your ring up here to the 4th fret, put your pinky down behind it and you can put your bar down or just or just play this. [Demonstration] All right the third chord is an A chord. If you want to play a regular A chord, be my guest. If you are a beginner and you’re having trouble with chord progressions and fingerings, remember that when you’re playing this chord up here that B chord of the easy one, you can just slide this down to frets so you’re covering the two middle strings. This is actually an A suspended but it’ll work for this chord. So if you’re a little more advance and you know where your chords, you can use an E, it’s a B bar chord to an A bar chord back to B bar chord. If your kind of intermediate, use the E chord to these two here but this bar covers as a B suspended. I’ve done an A and back into the bit. If you’re an extreme beginner, use an E chord to this two up here between the middle and then pointer finger touches down the A string. So you have open, 2nd fret, 4th fret, 4th fret, open. To second chord, slide down for the third chord back up here for your B. These are only chords you need for the whole song. So right now, I’m going to play to the verse one more time so you can see how it goes. I’ll try to give you the strum patterns so— [Demonstration] In the strum pattern I use E chord. Slide up here to your B, slide it down, down to the A, back to the B. It's going to be a tough strum pattern because I change every time. Just remember this. Strum patterns don’t matter. Just keep on the rhythm you can strum all down. [Demonstration] That’s all down strums. You just want to focus on the rhythm. So hopefully that covered the chords for the verse. Check the tab info box. So now for the chorus, I’m going to try make this little short. I’ll get a deeper voice so this gives me some troubles trying to sing it like he sings it but I’m going to kind of go—so it sounded low but it's the same chords. It's just—I’m singing it lower. So the first one is, it’s an E chord. It goes E to B to A to B. So it's basically the same chord progressions that you had in the verses and the chorus is the same thing. It's E to B to A to B. [Demonstration] I don’t know how it goes in that part but good luck with that. There’s really no bridge, there’s a break. It wouldn’t trade one single day. I’m proud to say I love this place. That’s just an A chord to a B chord and everything else repeats. So good luck with the song. If you want to play the capo instead of your E chord, play an F#m chords, your bar across second of this chord. That lesson helps you guys. It's a good song. I know a lot of you will enjoy it and good luck. Remember, check out freeandeasyguitar.com for free lessons. Take care.