Hey guys, what’s up? It’s Aaron. The next song I’m going to do is by John Cougar Mellencamp just like the last one I put up was on Jack and Diane, this one is on Small Town. So this is a song I can remember from Middle School grown up, and I wanted to teach you this song. So it’s pretty simple. Others kind of get a difficult strum pattern but the chord formations are pretty easy. But standard tuning, capo is on the fourth fret as you can see. The four chords we’re going to, well, I think there’s five. The main chord you’re going to use is a G… G, if you guys don’t know G you can google it, or middle finger is on the top string third fret, A string pointer finger second fret, tow middle open, and then bottom two strings, third fret with your ring and pinky. Or you can just play it without your… play whatever you want with the G. Alright, so aside from the G… to do a D, it’s a D two I think. Basically what that means is your pointer finger is here on the G string second fret, and your middle finger, I’m sorry ring finger is on the third fret of your B string, and nothing’s on the high E. It’s open.
The stringer for this is C add nine, which is just like that four-finger G I showed you. This is the G, pointer finger there, middle finger there, ring and pinky down here. Alright, now the G, if you move that down, that’s a C add nine. So there, middle finger is on the second string down, pointer finger is right here, and then these two are still here. That D I showed you is this right here. Pointer finger third string up second fret, ring finger right there, and then the only other chord other than that which you’ll need is an A minor. So your pointer finger there second string, and then higher D, middle finger ring, I’m sorry middle finger there, second fret, ring finger, this string second fret… alright. So now I’m going to sit back, make sure I’m in the lens.
The way this song kind of goes, is kind of difficult strum pattern that sounds like this… alright. So basically you’re doing, start in the G… you went to a G for half measure… to a D… back to the C add nine… and you finish with a G… or back in the D, I’m sorry… which is this one… middle finger, get out of there so it’s not there on high E. Right there, see, that middle finger is nowhere to be found. It’s not on the fireboard, alright.
So I’m going to try and walk you through the strum pattern. It’s kind of hard for me to think in my head but it sound like this… so I like to do it, I go, on the G, I go… down, down, and then I switch to this D and I go down, up, down, up, up, down, let’s see… ok. In the G, down, down, switch to the D, down, up, down, back to the C add nine, down, up, down, to the D, down, up, down, up. So it sounds like this… oh, so it’s kind of it’s repeated it a couple of times.
Other than that, I think that’s actually, I think that’s actually from where I call the entire song. The only thing that’s different is you play that though the easy line of the verse. You play the whole G to D, to C, back to D, and start over. Now when it says “Oh, those small communities”, the verse of the pre-chorus, “Another boring romantic that's me”, all you do is you play A minor so… so I just play down, down, up, up, down, up, switch to the D, down, down, up, up, down, up, so the last sound of the verse will sound like this. Here we go…
The chorus, “No I cannot forget where it is that I come from. I cannot forget the people who love me”, that’s just G… to C… to G… to D… to G… to C… G… The strum pattern I use is just G, down, down, down, up, down, see, down, down, down, up, down, up, up, down, down, up, down, up, down, down, down, up, down, up, there’s no right or wrong strum pattern. Basically the best thing to do is to have, get the chords where you’re comfortable changing the chords. You can go here on YouTube, open up the window, start the song and try to play it… juts like that.
The only thing left is in the verse sometimes you hear this, it’s… or just… it’s kind of a riff. All that is, is you put one finger in your D string, I’m sorry B string… you play the high E open… third fret on your B, and then your G string open so it’s like… oh, that’s what a little riff is. This is, other than the strum pattern, if you’re good at changing chords, if you’re not having trouble getting the strum patterns down, try and tackle this one. You might be tough on it at first but you know, pushing yourselves can get you better so I hope you enjoyed the lesson. Hope you guys like this song and good luck learning. See you guys, and girls.
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