Hey, Sean Daniel here with Guitar Control, we’re taking on a kind of “Neo Classic Blue Jeans” by Lana Del Rey. This is going to be an acoustic guitar version and we’re going to talk a little bit about the main riff and the chords super simple three chords and the truth this is a great example of how you don’t really need a lot of chord vocabulary to make a cool song.
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Click on the Tabs button to follow the chords and tabs.
First things first Capo’s on the 1st fret to play in the original key, I bet you probably already know a little bit of these chords but we’re going to talk about how to play them to kind of capture more of the spirit of the song and how the main riff goes along with them so the chords are super easy E minor, open E, 2A, 2D, open all the way down again when I say 2A, it’s really the 3rd fret relative to the capo so this is the E minor chord shape but it’s really an F minor chord and the grand scheme of things in reality, so that’s the 1st chord then we’re going to go to a D major chord to have the high E-string 3 on the B- string 2 on the G-string and then A major.
Now I want you to play the A major with your middle finger on the 2nd fret of the D-string ring finger behind it pinky right behind that you can always fire it but we’re into a couple different things as far as like pull offs and then suspensions to kind of get a little bit more of the original spirit of the song so if you’ve ever heard the song you know the main riff starts off like really easy rep open E to A, open D for D to D A for A.
Now you can play just like that but we’re going to do more of a singer-songwriter type of style that and the first part are going to be really easy because we want to hear that part on an E minor chord the best way to do that is to play the full chord but hit the open E-string and then the chord and then the next part the representative of this open D to 4D, they’re just two notes into D major chord now usually when you play this voicing we don’t always have this specific note in there this would be like an F sharp we’ll have this on top of the chord don’t worry about it it’s just kind of like hitting that D major chord in there so it’s like and then we’re going to add that A suspended 4 and at the end I’m not going to quarter out as spending four because it’s really just kind of like a flourish I suppose but in the in the song as far as what she’s doing vocally and what’s happening with like the rest of the track a lot of times we’ll hear either this D note over an A chord or an open B over in a chord which those are the two types of suspensions if you can do with an a that’s why it’s nice to use this voice for your pinky on the top of the chord because you can use your pinky up to open it up getting suspended two chord is what it’s called or put on the 3rd fret here to suspend 4 chord.
Now if we have the whole progression E minor D, A, A, again it was only this at that suspension, now that last thing I did would be same thing a lot of suspended chords are a great way to add a little bit more a lot of content to a basic chord progression like E minor, D, A major progression, D seconds before you can suspend it by adding your pinky is really the hero of the suspensions that’s why I think it’s a really good song as far as really kind of keeping a chill vibe but hitting the beats with the strums in a musical way instead. You know that’s the tempo in the main part of the song doesn’t really sound like you want to capture a lot of the openness of that main riff. Now another thing that you can do with that suspended chord that we talked about with the A is to do a pull off during it because that’s what she’s doing vocally in a lot of it okay so I’m getting a down stroke and then on the up stroke I’m kind of getting my pinky off there just like that, so really try to recreate the sound of that with the E minor suspended A hold it and now most of the song is just like that.
Now there is a breakdown we’re just going to go from E minor to D, so we’re kind of leaving the A part out of it and I think a good way to do that and a great technique that you can start using for any kind of breakdown is palm muting okay so if we’ve got just the E minor back and forth to a D, but you’ll see on the chord chart that’s why it’s great to click that link below to kind of follow along with where these cores are happening in relation to the lyrics is a great way to kind of tag where those chords go lyric wise instead of just kind of you know boring they just kind of like going through the bars which again is totally fine if that’s how you want to do it that’s the easiest way to sing and play at the same time back and forth between that D minor and that deal it’s fine but I think there’s a really good opportunity to maybe build a dynamic to get back to the open and the way to build that dynamic is by really heavily palm muting in so you take the side of your hand karate chop the bridge three for him down, down, down, down, to 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, more bars and then switch to D and eventually you go back to the main chord you have a little bit more of a dynamic and there’s a little bit more of a storytelling that kind of goes along with that.
Lana Del Rey great writer great lyricist has her definitely her own unique style and that’s why I think when you think about maybe covering a song like this I’m going to kind of keep in the spirit of what they’re going for unless you wanted to totally remake and redo yourself which is totally fine I think this is a couple techniques to maybe add a dynamic component to your strumming and then kind of get that same feel of space that the main riff in the original recording has it kind of just kind of keeps going back and forth dancing between these chords and therefore kind of giving every chord a little bit space to kind of do its thing so cool songs are super easy to learn in ten minutes or less and definitely if you have any other song requests old classic wise new classic wise let us know and we will definitely and try to get that done for you I also check out other videos I’m a guitar control channel by myself of the great instructors and we’ve got a huge collection of songs the very top really look through them and like I said before if there’s anything you haven’t seen let us know.
Make sure to subscribe on our YouTube Channel and we’ll see you in our next video lessons, thanks for watching.
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