Stage 4 songs.

[dougster]

Killing Me Softly, Strumming Pattern ideas?

Any suggestions? Justin recommends the old faithful pattern of [D /D U/ U/D}, but that pattern seems maybe too... kinetic... with this song. Especially when playing along with the gentle Roberta Flack version at a ~110 tempo and having a singer accompany me.  I am trying a [D / U/ /D] pattern, but I'm not sure. Has anyone else tried some alternative strumming patterns with this?

Thanks :-)

[jacksroadhouse]

If you want to play the song in the style of Roberta Flack, you will probably need to fingerpick it. You could use a simple arpeggeiation, a pattern like R 32 123 or R 23 132 (R=Root, numbers=strings).

Other than that, the key with a song like that imho is not so much the pattern, but the strumming itself. You'd need to strum this very softly. You could try to strum D _uD _ (full measure, counted 1 _+3 _), that should work with the rhythm. I could imagine some other patterns for this, but that would mean 16th note strumming.

[dougster]

I like the idea of fingerpicking Killing Me Softly, thanks! Once I get more practice with that technique, this'll be a good one to try.
I tried recording myself playing along with the song in garageband, and am realizing that it sounds more relaxed in the recording, even though I felt like I was going bananas playing it at speed. Though it also highlighted where I was falling off tempo and missing changes. Pretty cool overall.

[jaytorch22]

I apologize if this question was asked already but I didn't see it.  I'm having some trouble with the "pushed" chord change for "Sitting on the Dock..."  I understand that there's a 2-bar pattern but the strumming pattern in the book looks like the chord change is in the middle of the 2-bar pattern.  So when there's a chord change, do you just play each chord for one bar? 

Thanks for your help.
Jay

[jacksroadhouse]

I don't have the book, so I'm not sure what Justin wrote there. But...

Typically pushes mean that you anticipate the chord change, in a 8th note strumming/rhythm usually by one 8th. What that means is that you change the chord not on the "1", but on the "4-and" (the last 8th in the measure. With the "D du udu" strum pattern you'd change the chord on the last up-stroke, so the last up is already the new chord:

Code: [Select]

G      B7      C       A
D du uduD du uduD du uduD du udu
1 2& &4&1 2& &4&1 2& &4&1 2& &4&

For this to work you have to do the chord changes very fast. If that's too much right now, I wouldn't sweat it. The song sounds just fine without the pushes.

EDIT: unless you're talking abput the bridge here, that's a different story altogether.