CCR - have you ever seen the rain?

Nice one Matteo,

Any song by the great CCR is welcome here on easy songs. This is one of those tunes that doesn't get the air play it deserves on the classic/oldies radio stations. This one and Green River, which I'm not sure is on Easy Songs either.

Nice job.

Rod. :)

I was at the local Music store and noticed that John Fogerty just released a CCR / John Fogerty Greatest Hit's. And yes this song is on the CD.

Great song... as with most of John Fogerty's songs, it's great to play, but also easy to sing along with.

Thanks Matteo

Nice one Matteo,

Any song by the great CCR is welcome here on easy songs. This is one of those tunes that doesn't get the air play it deserves on the classic/oldies radio stations. This one and Green River, which I'm not sure is on Easy Songs either.

Nice job.

Rod. :)

Hmmmm - any volunteers for "Green River?"

:D :D :D

Vic

I recall playing the verse with the following strum: duxu (down up, mute up).

One thing to be careful about with John Fogerty (one of my favorite entertainers of all time) is that when he plays his black Les Paul guitar, that particular guitar is tuned down 2 semi-tones...so that when the rest of his backing band is playing in the key of D (such as "Bad Moon Rising"), John is playing in the key of E.

I have playing his stuff since the late 60's, and are very familiar with the keys that he likes to write and sing in...and I was totally baffled while watching him on the "Premonition" DVD...he was playing "Proud Mary" in E...while I have been playing it in D for 3 decades. Pretty confusing.

Just heads up...

Hi all

just a small addiction: the intro starts with a pick-up beat of two sisxteen notes, repeated also in the F to C change, so it should be played like this

Am: du/Du/Du/Du/Du
F: Du/Du/Du/D
C: du/Du/Du/Du/Du
G : Du/Du/Du/Du

then play two measures of C and then start the verse

Matteo

p.s. yesterday I saw a CCR tab book and it seems that they play a simple Du/Du/Du/Du pattern thorughout the all song. I prefer to play it with a two measures patterns like this tough

D/D/du/du/D/du/u/du

Hi...nice write up.

Im very new to guitar and music, for that matter, so I have some questions.

What significance does a capital "D" have when you describe the strum pattern and the slash?

Also, what's it mean when you place a slash between two chords like here with C/B:

[F]I want to [G]know, have you [C]ever [C/B]seen the [Am]rain

Lastly,

Can someone tell me what I would strum for perhaps the first few lines of the song. I'm a little confused as to how to relate the strum pattern to the song itself.

Sorry for my very silly questions.

Any help is appreciated, thanks.

hi mate

to answer your questions:

a) do not focus on capital letters, what it is really imprtant is the slash which divide one beat from another, so that if I write that the pattern is

du/du/du/du

it means to play a downstroke (d) and an upstroke (u) for each beat;

b) the C/b is just a different C chord with a different fingering, but for the moment, since you're a beginner, don't care about it: just play the regular C and it will still sounds ok;

c) to understand how to play a pattern you have to be able to play at a steady time, so the first thing to do is try to recognize the beats and the measures in the song. As i said the song is in 4/4 so you have to count from 1 to 4 to complete a measure. Just listen a few times to the record and tap your foot alongside the beat. If everything is ok you could try to play it. At the beginning just play a downstrum for each beat and change chord like this

intro: play Am 4 times, F 4 times, C 4 times, G 4 times, C 8 times
verse: play C 16 times, G 8 times, C 8 times then repeat it
verse: F 4 times, G 4 times, C, 4 times, Am 4 times repeat it twice (last time substitute Am with an additional C)

Since the song is moderate pace (around 115 bpm if you play with metronome), you should be able to play one downstrum for each beat alongside the record quite soon

Cheers

Matteo

matteo:

Thank you so much for your reply, your such a tremendous help! I just started playing the song with my stroke and naturally I came out to it that way. Although I have one concern.

the stroke I use is DOWN DOWN-UP UP-DOWN-UP.

You guys have this split into 4 d/du/u/du but I feel like the way i play it its more d/du/udu

is that a problem?

hi mate

if you're a beginner please do not do the same mistake that many of us (me included) made in their first guitar months: do not focus too much on the strum directions since what it is really important is to keep your strumming going syncronizing it to the song beat. If, like most beginners, you have still not developed the ability to play with steady timing, trying to replicate a specific pattern could be only frustrating: that's what happened to me. It is better to start with some easy straight patterns and learn to play them conformtably and then move on to more complex ones. The suggested pattern I gave is a wondeful, really versatile one which can be employed with excellent results with all 4/4 songs faster than 100-110 bpm speed (it can be played but it does not work so well with slow numbers since it is has too few strums!), but is is not immediate to learn since it involves syncopation (missing a downstrum) which is not easy for a beginner.

The best thing you can do is listen to a few examples of this pattern to understand how it should sound and then try to replicate it playing with metronome.

I give you a couple of links where you could listen to it and check if you're near to play it correctly

http://www.heartwoodguitar.com/blog/FolkStrumPatternLesson.wmv

http://guitar.about.com/library/weekly/aa082300e.htm

Cheers

Matteo

Anyone know "Lookin' out my backdoor"? I think that's the title. Do do do lookin out my back door, memories and elephants,,,,

Take a peek at the ESD index and you'll find a number of CCR songs, including "Lookin Out My Back Door"

ESD Index

Thanks! Found it already.

I believe this was the second song I learned. Great song and still bust it on occasion.