BS-101 • Three Little Birds - Bob Marley

[southguy69]

- love this song. I would like to move it up to barre chords so I can really get the reggae feel going on.

The only thing is that the E I am trying to use sounds wrong? I do an A barre at the 5th fret, 6th string and the D one string down. The only E close by is on the 7th fret of the 5th String, it sounds too high to fit? Any ideas on what to do here?

Many thanks

Dom 

[shadowscott007]

Read the 5 or 6 posts above yours.

Shadow

[mmmbert]

- love this song. I would like to move it up to barre chords so I can really get the reggae feel going on.

The only thing is that the E I am trying to use sounds wrong? I do an A barre at the 5th fret, 6th string and the D one string down. The only E close by is on the 7th fret of the 5th String, it sounds too high to fit? Any ideas on what to do here?

If you just want to use barre chords, you could change the key:

For Example, you could play the A as an E shaped B barre at the 7th fret, the D as an E one string down, and the E then as an F# barre at the second fret.

Just a thought. Then the "E" would be "lower" than the other 2 just as in the open chord version.

in conjunction, you could tune all the strings down a step, and it would be in the original key as well.

[alanm]

Hi Justin and site administrators. Can't thank you enough for the site. I have just started learning guitar and Justins lessons have really fired my enthusiasm. A question, at the end of the lesson Justin mentions checking out his strumming tutorial. Which lesson number is that? Thanks.

[sophiehiker]

If you're talking about the D DU UD pattern at 8:30-8:59 it's
http://www.justinguitar.com/en/BC-165-RhythmBasics4.php

However, you might want to check out the entire Beginners Course if you're just starting.
http://www.justinguitar.com/en/BC-000-BeginnersCourse.php

Cheers

[misterg]

@alanm: He might mean the R.U.S.T. dvd.

It used to be called "Really Usefull Strumming Techniques" - RUST, and you may still see it referred to as this on the forum, but I see it has recently been re-branded as 'Strumming Techniques 1':

http://justinguitar.com/en/PR-007-StrummingTechniques1.php

This has always been a paid for product, but the basics for a couple of patterns are in those lessons in the Beginner's course that SophieHiker linked to. Worth getting IMHO.

Andy

[alanm]

Thanks for the advice sophiehiker and misterg.

As sophiehiker suggested I have started on Justin's beginner course and I bought the Beginner's Songbook.

I want to support this brilliant site as well as learn guitar so I'm going to buy and download the Strumming Techniques 1 DVD - thanks for the link misterg.

Alan.

[mikejain99]

Guys i've just joined this forum...
My A chord is sounding no where near justin's A chord in the video...
Playing each note of the chord sounds good but while strumming it sucks and thinnest E string is too loud which makes it even worse...!!!
Please help...

[mmmbert]

Guys i've just joined this forum...
My A chord is sounding no where near justin's A chord in the video...
Playing each note of the chord sounds good but while strumming it sucks and thinnest E string is too loud which makes it even worse...!!!
Please help...

I am afraid the answer is simply "Practice"

There is no magic bullet.

[sleepingbear]

I read all the previous posts, but still didn't find the answer to the question about where to start singing every time? I'm a layman, but it's quite frustrating! I like the song very much. Watched the video many times, still not sure where should I start singing while strumming... Anybody can help me? Big thanks!!!

[Dr Winterbourne]

Try singing along with the record.

[TheCasual]

Just started learning this song tonight. Only being playing a week.I've  learnt the chorus in 15 minutes, but how do you get it all to fit together? My chord changes are uneven and it doesn't sound great.

[stitch101]

Play it slow at first. Start at a speed you can play everything in time and with clean chord changes.
Once you've mastered it at the slow pace start to speed it up little by little.

[TheCasual]

Play it slow at first. Start at a speed you can play everything in time and with clean chord changes.
Once you've mastered it at the slow pace start to speed it up little by little.

Been playing it a week now. Sounds okayish, but no near perfect. I'm still struggling with timing, but I think my problem is I stop strumming when I change chords.

[misterg]

Been playing it a week now. Sounds okayish, but no near perfect. I'm still struggling with timing, but I think my problem is I stop strumming when I change chords.

It's early days, but just a heads-up so you know that is a REALLY bad habit to get into, and can be hard to get out of. (I know, I did it!)

IMHO: Give some special effort to practicing the two things separately - Hammer the 1 minute changes some more for the chords involved, and practice strumming to a metronome without changing chords (hold one chord down, or just mute the strings). Use an on-line metronome if you haven't got one. Keep going, without introducing chord changes, until you can do 4 down strums, to your metronome, in your sleep, then come back to the song - still with the metronome.

Think of this stage as like being at a fork in the road. You can either take one path that lets your left hand rule the roost, or take the other and make your right hand rule the roost. At the moment, there's not much to choose between them, and it might seem natural for your left hand (or fretting hand) to take charge, as this is the one doing all the complicated stuff. With just a little effort, though, you can gently force your right hand to take charge. The problem is that once you venture down your chosen path, it can be very hard to get back. Make sure to choose the path that puts your strumming hand in control, as this sets your rhythm (which is THE most important thing in music).

It really won't take long, but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as they say, and it's important to get in early (IMHO!).

/rant !

Andy

[TheCasual]

A question for you, Andy.

When using the metronone do you continuously strum or do you strum and then wait for the next beep? Hope that makes sense, I don't think I've explained very well?

I'm doing exactly what you've said.

[misterg]

When using the metronone do you continuously strum or do you strum and then wait for the next beep? Hope that makes sense, I don't think I've explained very well?

OK: What you're aiming to do is to keep your strumming hand moving constantly up and down (not: Down. Wait. Up; or Down. Up. Wait...)

Every time your hand moves down, the pick strums the strings, and this should coincide with the metronome beep. You shouldn't wait for, or anticipate the metronome beep, just concentrate on keeping your hand movement synchronised with the beeps. If you're doing it really well, the metronome beep disappears under the sound of the strum. The analogy often given is that of jogging alongside someone else: You're running on your own, but you make automatic, sub-conscious adjustments to keep pace with them and stay alongside. Your strumming hand needs to jog alongside the metronome.

So I guess that's strumming continuously 

If you can tap your foot on the beep at the same time it's a good habit to get into (seriously!).

I would guess 60 bpm is a good place to start (one strum per second).

Andy

[ghostdancer]

Firstly - Thanks from Latvia to Justin! You are the best teacher there is on the web!

But a couple of silly questions though.
What does (A) mean? I understand A is one full bar but (A)?
And about intro. Are those 4 As (A A A A) four bars or four parts of a bar?

P.S. Pardon my english.

did anyone answer this i would like to know as well please

[misterg]

Firstly - Thanks from Latvia to Justin! You are the best teacher there is on the web!

But a couple of silly questions though.
What does (A) mean? I understand A is one full bar but (A)?
And about intro. Are those 4 As (A A A A) four bars or four parts of a bar?

P.S. Pardon my english.

did anyone answer this i would like to know as well please

A chord name in brackets (A) ususally means that the chord has continued from the end of the last line (so you don't need to play it again, just finish the bar that you're on).

The 4 A chords in the intro are 4 bars of A

HTH

[Lonenut]

I'm playing on an electric guitar and this is basically my first "song" that I'm ever playing. This is probably a terribly obvious question, but I'm not certain what the answer is.

When I strum and go to my next note, my previous note is basically sustained. Should I be silencing the strings somehow, and if so how? If I don't and I, say, play an E before a D, the E string often continues to sustain past that strum.

[misterg]

It will sound worse on an electric than an acoustic, unfortunately, because the strings keep ringing much longer on an electric.

For the moment, don't worry about it. As your chord changing speed improves, it will be much less obvious, and in due course, you will learn to mute the low E string (with your left thumb) when you hold a D chord, but I think trying to do that now will probably just throw your chord fingering off.

[Daveydoh]

I've been practicing with this song, but when I play it on my own using down strums only it sounds nothing like Bob Marley Three Little Birds

Should I be able to sing along to it so that someone can figure out the song I'm playing? Or should I just keep practicing it? I feel I picked up a bad habit some where and I'm trying to get rid of it. It is very much appreciated if this could be answered or maybe some advice for my situation, if it makes sense.

Thank you, very much appreciated.

[sophiehiker]

When we all first start playing guitar, it doesn't sound like much.  And that's okay.   

There are three parts to music: harmony, melody, and rhythm.  When we first start playing chords on the guitar, we are playing the harmony.  There's no melody and, if you're playing all down strums, there's not much rhythm.  And that's okay.

If you can add the vocal, that helps a lot cause that's the melody.  A lot of us, when starting out,  have trouble singing and playing at the same time.  I practiced a lot playing along with the songs.  I used some software (Audacity) to slow the song down so I could keep up with the chord changes. 

[mouser9169]

There are three parts to music: harmony, melody, and rhythm

Don't forget counterpoint! 

The guitar is actually really good at keeping that going.

Anyway, to the strumming thing: in the very beginning, just play the chords in sequence. Make sure you're comfortable with the fingerings and the changes. This is pretty much step one in sight reading a new piece.

Once you can do that, introduce a steady rhythm and play your chords with simple strumming (4 or even 2 strums to a bar works well). When you're doing this, the rhythm is what's important - if you miss a chord, you miss a chord. Just like playing live, you've got to keep going. Keep it slow enough and your left hand will learn to keep up with your right.

[FragDaddy]

Just got the Beginner's Songbook the other day, and having the same problem as with other songs on the Internet. At what word do you change chords??? When I watch his video, Justin's changes aren't right above the words of the song as in the book. Wouldn't it be a good idea to have the chord and it's corresponding words in a different font or color from the previous one? Just alternate between each chord and there would be no confussion. Also, being a beginner it would be nice to post a basic tempo with each song to help us get started. Would appreciate any help with understanding this. Thanks.