Hey board,
Take a gander at this YouTube link; this guy plays an awsome version of CCR's Midnight Special, but
for the life of me (a humble beginner), I can't figure out how he's doing it. I'm sure a pro here
can spot what the player is up to right away, so I thought to ask if someone could explain how to
play like that guy in the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZps11KWY18
Cheers,
Arf.
Namaste.
I'm no pro but I think I can help you out.
While it may look hard, the "secret" here is that he's playing in Drop D tuning, meaning that he's tuned his low E string (the thickest one) down a full step to D. To borrow a line from the song, "How do you know?" Watch when he plays the last D chord before going into the chorus. He's using all six strings and you can hear that the low note is a D and not an E.
Okay, now that you know that you still have to make some adjustments. The song really only has four chords (although he's using five and we'll get to that in a moment) - G, D, A7 and D7. D and D7 will be fingered the same in Drop D as in standard tuning. Just remember that you can hit all six strings.
G needs to be reworked. He's playing it with the following fingering: 550003.
For the A7, he's wrapping his thumb around to catch the E note at the second fret, while partially barring the second fret with his index finger and adding the G on the high E (first) string - 202223. You don't have to play it this way. If you're careful about your strumming, then a regular A7 (x02020 or x02223) will work fine.
In the intro, he's switching from the G to G7 (xx0001) and for the very last flourish on the bass string (remember it's a D now instead of E), he's bending the F note on the third fret. When he gets going on the rhythm, he slides the G chord down two frets to get one of those weird guitar chords (330001) that's essentially gives you a G7 sound (or F if you prefer) that everyone will argue about how it should be notated (check out the upcoming lesson here at Guitar Noise on Man In The Moon for more on this sort of fun :wink: ). You can get away with just using the regular "cheating" G7 mentioned earlier.
At the very end, he simply slides the entire D chord up twelve frets (0 0 0 0 14 15 14) where it becomes (surprise!) a D chord played an octave higher.
This really isn't beyond your abilities if you can make G, A and D chord changes. It's simply a matter of learning a few different voicings of the chords, owing to the use of Drop D tuning.
Hope this helps and good luck with it.
Peace
Wow, thanks for the info--especially the fast reply. I think that guy is also doing
a wee bit of picking a string here and there while strumming. I'll form the chord
shapes and see if I can figure out that much for myself. 8)
Namaste.
