How To Play Take It On The Run By REO Speedwagon

Guitar Control presents instructor Darrin Goodman with an acoustic arrangement of Take It On The Run by REO Speedwagon. Be sure to click the link to get the tabs so you can easily follow along with this classic song lesson.

Take It On The Run

Introduction

How’s it going everybody? This is Darrin with GuitarControl.com bringing you this video lesson. Today I want to teach you an acoustic arrangement for Take It On The Run by REO Speedwagon. So this is pretty simple to play, just a bunch of easy chords that you probably already know, but we will go over them real quick just in case you do not. So be sure to click the link in the description for the tabs so you can easily follow along and lets get close up and take a look.

Take It On The Run Chords

So first lets run through the chords that we will be using. So we’ve got G major; So my second finger is on the third fret of the low E string, my first finger is on the second fret of the A string, the D and G strings are open and I’m on the third fret of the B string with my third finger and the third fret of the high E string with my fourth finger… So next we have, these are not in order by the way. So we have C add 9 (Cadd9) and you basically go from your G major to Cadd9 by moving your first and second fingers up a set of strings so now my first finger is on the third fret of the A string and my first finger is on the second fret of the D string… Next we have C major; so third finger on the third fret of the A string, second finger on the second fret of the D string, G string is open, first fret of the B sting with my first finger and the high E string is open… Then we have A minor; so to make C into Am we simply move our third finger from the A string to the second fret of the G string… Then we have D major; so the D string is open, first finger on the second fret of the G string, third finger on the third fret of the B string and second finger on the second fret of the high E string… Then we have a D suspended four (Dsus4); so from D you simply put your fourth finger on the third fret of the high E string. And then finally we E minor; so the low E string is open and I’m on the second fret of the A string with my second finger and my third finger is on the second fret of the D string and the rest of the strings are open… and I believe that those are all of the chords that are in the song.

Intro

So the song basically has a couple of parts that we need to go over. So first we have this intro. So we start off with G and we have one quarter note, four sixteenth notes and then two more quarter notes; 1, 2 E & A, 3, 4, so down, down up down up, down, down and that’s the strum for most of the song. Feel free to experiment with that and make it fancier, this is just basic so you can pick it up quickly. So we have one measure of G on this intro… to C… to D… and then back to G… So here on this last G we have; 1, 2 E & A and then we switch to Dsus4 for beat three and then switch to D for three and then back to Dsus4 for the and of four, so… that’s the intro… and that leads us into the verse.

Verse

So the verse is similar to the intro, the first part of it anyway… no we go back to G and the strumming is a little different; 1, 2 &, 3 &, 4 and then we switch to Cadd9 and it’s a ¼ bar so it’s just one beat of 1 & and then its repeated. So the first half of the verse… and then it just repeats… So now going on to the second half of the verse starting on measure ten, starting the same way we have; G… C… D… and then that same G thing, but this time we have a 2/4 bar of G to D over F sharp (D/F#). D/F# is a chord I forgot to go over; so you just take the D chord we did and you pickup the second fret of the low E with your thumb and now you strum all six strings. So starting on measure 13 we have G; 1, 2, 3 &, 4 and then 1, 2 and that leads us into the chorus.

Chorus

So the chorus starts off with Em, same strum, to C, to D, to G, to D/F#, back to Em, C, Am and then D. So that last measure is like the last measure of the intro except its based around a D instead of a G. So we go to D; 1, 2 E & A, to Dsus4 for beat 3, and then back to D for beat 4 and Dsus4 for the and of 4… and then it goes back into another verse. So that whole chorus… So everything together…

Conclusion

Alright, so I hope that you enjoyed that and you got something out of it. If you like this lesson be sure to give it a thumbs up and leave me a comment down below if you have any comments or questions about this or any other guitar related topics. If you have not already done so please subscribe to the channel and hit the notification bell so you don’t miss any of the content that we upload throughout the week. That is all I have for you today. Thanks for watching and have a great day.

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