Song 4 - Joy To The World

In this lesson we'll be learning Joy To The World on acoustic guitar.

We play 4 strums per chord for this song in 4/4 time, whereas with most songs in this series it has been 3 strums per chord so far or 3/4 time. This change helps us to become familiar with common time and feel. Plus, further improving our chord sheet reading ability.

Key Learning Points

• Improving changes between the E, A, and D chords.

• Playing and understanding 4/4 time over 3/4 time

• More learning and further understanding chord sheets

• 4/4 Common time - songs in 4/4 time have four beats per bar and we count '1, 2, 3, 4'.

This may feel more natural, as the vast majority of popular music songs are in 4/4 time. Thinking about accents on the beats and less about tempo (speed of a song), we can feel the accent is on beat one for 3/4 time, which puts two beats between each accented beat. This gives 4/4 a more 'square' feel, while 3/4 has a more 'round' feel.

Joy To The World - full play through