Hey, how’s it going this is Shawn Daniel with Guitar Control, today we’re doing a Classic song by a classic man the boss Bruce Springsteen “I’m on Fire”. A really cool kind of minimalist short song that is a fun to play and sing along that follows a 12 bar booze variation. So we’re going to talk about the structure of it because it’s helps you remember if it’s in a blues context even though it’s not really the blues which is something that makes the song an acoustic version. It’s really just drums electric guitar and a keyboard kind of synth type thing and recorded version. We’re going to do an acoustic one that you can sing along to and it’s going to sound like this and most of the progression.
Click on the Tabs buton to follow chords and tabs.
We’re going to talk a little bit more about the structure but that’s like the loose sound of what we’re going for and it really starts off with an Intro just E to C sharp minor. The only chords you need for this entire group of song are E major, A major, B major, C sharp minor, this would be a song in the key of E.
The really cool thing about this is we’re going incorporate some of the drumming into it, like if you hear Max Weinberg from the E Street Band, this drumming is like we’re trying to get what that drum kit is doing, so when we talk about a bar it’s going to be a 12 bar progression. We’re going to do this kind of steadiness of that drum track instead of going with your strumming for the 1st down, up, is going to be the lower string, this doesn’t matter if you get two of them, three of them, just kind of aim for the lower strings instead of getting all because we’re going to go up just like that so 1, 2, 3, 4, that’s going to be a bar 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, like which to get the 12 bar blues kind of structure.
So if we do that over an E major chord it’s going to sound like this, now it’s a faster tempo but if you play along with the song it’s doable because it’s super simple. So we’re going to stay on this traditional 12 bar blues, we have 4 bars of the one chord, and then 2 bars of the four chord, and then back to the one chord. So it really does follow a lot of the 12 bar blues just like that but we’re going to do it in E.
Then I usually might go back to the five-person, this is where it switches up we’re going to this C sharp minor. Let’s go over all the chords here we have E major open E to A to D, 1G open be open you make sure to click the link below because I’m going to have the chord chart up because it’s really easy to see the chords with the lyrics for this one because it’s such an iconic song so you probably already know where the lyrics go right so drive with this A major to C sharp minor. So we have 4 bars of E, then we have 2 bars of A, and 2 bars of C sharp minor,’ so all you go that would be 8 bars that are eight out of twelve. That’s 4 bars of just the E with that strumming pattern then we’re going 2 bars of A.
After that we’re going from a bar of A, bar and 2 more bars of E. So if we organize this we have 4b, 2 of A, and 2 of C sharp minor, 1 of A, 1 of B, then 2 of E. Now that’s the majority of the song not counting the intro and outro kind of break. I will talk to it in a second but I just want to make sure you get that part down because that’s like the majority. So if I want to talk about this A to B major part which again we have 1 bar each so here’s open to two all the way down and we can actually if you don’t want to play a full B major like this 2, 4, 4, 4, we can just move this a down two frets your frets higher so there are different ways to play these because I know a lot of people have a hard time with an E major chord that’s the easier way to do it also that C sharp minor let’s go over real quick for a 60 65 feet alright so again you only chords need our C sharp minor so overall make sure you just keep that first bar down where it’s more B 2 of A, to of C-sharp minor, 1 of A, 1 of the 2, of you alright that’s the main structure of the song now as far as like the intro goes it’s really just to E. These are minor that happens twice while you like you can keep our player do whatever and as here she does and then now the break after the first couple verses is just the opposite of that it’s a c-sharp minor and that happens again and then now when he comes out of it it’s a slightly different thing to get you into the main progression again or he just starts with the a c-sharp minor’ and then he goes into the main part again okay and then after that the only thing is the that bar just repeats a few times at the end so really it’s a very simple song I mean it clocks in like two and a half minutes and I think it’s just like it’s one of those classic rock songs that is kind of iconic in a certain way it’s really easy to play and it’s a great lesson in structure because there are a few quirks where it kind of changes up a little bit but it’s really good to think and count it in dynamic way and when I think I when I said I am it’s different than just going like because it is more of an intimate song so you kind of want to get the strumming to represent that a little bit that’s why I palm-muted a lot of it when I play like which is what he’s kind of doing I’m Natalia and just an electric version of it but again this is an acoustic guitar version of it so we’re kind of jumping back between
So let’s just run through the main progression a few times and I’ll slow it down to slower than it is on the studio version because to get the real the real tempo of it that it can be kind of quick so we’re just going slow it down and then you can you know speed it up and play along with the street version if you want so we’re just can do the main progression we’re going to skip the intro not show but just know I’m that chord chart you’ll see where just like the e to C sharp minor part is just going to be the E, A, C sharp, A, B, part okay 1, 2, 3, 4, every start again we have 1 for one.
So really just kind of get that part down and then film the rest of the blanks is my best recommendation for the song because the end it’s fun alone to play very simple and it has a cool vocal melody that kind of goes along with it so anyways I hope you enjoyed this lesson if you want more from the boss I’ll just know in the comment section and make sure to click on some of these surrounding videos by myself of the great instructors let us know what you guys want to see more of what’s working what’s not working and we’ll get back to you soon thanks a lot.
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