In this second lesson, we are introducing chords, a percussive beat and then playing them together.
The chords and techniques we are using are:
A G major and C add 9 chord
The kick and snare beat on the end/side of the guitar
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Exercise 1 -
Strum through the G chord and move arm towards the end of the guitar position
Turn your wrist (downstroke motion) to play the kick sound on the guitar belly with your thumb
We use the wrist to turn the opposite way (upstroke motion) and let the fingers to tap the guitar side for the snare sound
Now, the motion is going back toward the sound hole to start over again
Twice round, that concludes the first bar of the exercise piece
Repeat the same sequence with the C add 9 chord.
Exercise 2 - Continuing to bars 3 and 4, we introduce an upstroke on the chord at the end of the sequence.
Exactly as performed in exercise 1,
Strum through the G chord
Play the kick drum
Play the snare drum, and begin to move back towards the sound hole
Finally, play an upstroke of the chord before starting again on the downstroke
Complete this motion twice for Bar 3 and as we approach bar 4, we move to the C add 9 chord doing exactly the same motions in exercise 2.
Exercise 3 - The variation for this exercise is simply swapping our last motion (the upstroke chord) for a kick drum sound (belly of guitar) just before starting over on beat 1.
Similarly to Exercise 2 -
Strum through the G chord
Play the kick drum
Play the snare drum
Tap the belly of the guitar again for the kick drum and start moving the arm back to the sound hole
Twists in the wrist are key here, so we can play kicks and snares smoothly and in time.
Next Up: Lesson 3 - Kick Drum With A Down Strum
Well done! Let's jump into the next lesson of the course.