-
Head in’ Down South
Hello – I’m on the daily challenge for today (Headin’ Down South). Maybe I missed something prior, but in looking at the scale pdf. it shows the first verse as G chord, but the scale shows after starting with the 3rd fret of the low e, playing the 3rd fret of the high e and 3 rd fret of the b as well as open d and open g. This is not the G chord? Verse 2, 3 and 4 show chords D, E minor and C and the scale does show those chords as I used to seeing. What am I missing? Also what designates the up and down stroke on the tablature? I’m pretty new and still trying to learn some of these basics. Thanks, Chris
-
4 Replies
-
There’s really not a single “the G chord” as there are various G chords. In this case the strums are just brushing the treble strings and hinting at the chord, which is ok because you just picked that nice deep G base note on the low E string. Now technically a chord is three notes and a G major is G B and D. As charted there’s no B in that. If you want a B, using a 3 finger G chord and leaving the b string open is certainly an option. Of course, you are free to catch the B on the A string on the strums. That would work fine on the down strum. Going too far into the base on an up-strum feels weird. Usually you only catch a few of the treble strings.
As for direction, there’s nothing on that chart to indicate direction. There’s a convention that usually for 8th notes, on the beat is down and the “and”s are up. But that’s not etched in stone. Sometimes when it’s important and not obvious you little Vs for the up strokes and little staple like marks for the down strokes.
-
The G above the 1st measure is telling you that you will be basically play a G shape chord. So you can place your fingers to a G chord. You are not strumming a G chord you are playing individual and multiple notes (strings) along the measure. If you look at the first note on the music line you will see it’s a single G note. This is written in TAB line for guitar with the 3 (3rd fret) on the bottom line which represents the Low E string. You will strike the single note with your pick. The next group of notes are OPEN D, OPEN G, D, and G. They are lined up under each other and so are strummed together. The TABs correspond to the strings and frets played. This continues along the measure. As you look at the measure you can see the that if your hand is in the G chord shape you a can easily play each note or group of notes without having to change hand position. As you can see when you get to the last two notes of the measure you will be doing a pull off on the B note. Your finger will already be there because you initially placed your hand in a G chord position. The idea is your hand will be in the best position as to play the notes easily without having to move your fingers around all the time to play the notes. When you look at the 2nd measure there is a D chord written above that TAB measure. You can see that the second group of notes make a D chord. Even though the you will not be strumming a D through the whole measure the D chord shape sets you up for the best hand position for playing all the notes in that measure. Sometimes playing a chord just helps you anchor your hand to play the note. For example at the end of the second measure you will be doing a pull off on 2nd fret of the 3rd string. Having you hand in the D position helps stabilize your finger for the pull off. Same for the Em in the 3rd measure.
As for pick direction, you will need to look at the music line. When playing a whole 1/2 or 1/4 note you generally strum down. So if you have two 1/4 notes in a row, you would strum down for each count 1 (down) 2 ( down). If you have a 1/8 note you would count 1 & 2 &. The down stroke on the numbers and up stroke on the & beat. I know Tony explains this somewhere. He normally goes over counting and pick direction on most of the daily challenges.
I don’t know why Tony doesn’t have course on TABs but you can google or look on YouTube and find lots of help for reading TABs. Hope this helps.
Kim
-
Thanks for the question and thanks for the responses. This sharing if the learning experience is one of the useful and helpful things I like about TAC.
-
Thanks a lot Kim and Drew; very helpful information! I really appreciate sharing your experience and knowledge.
-
This reply was modified 1 year, 9 months ago by clsharkegmail-com.
-
This reply was modified 1 year, 9 months ago by
Log in to reply.