Hey, how’s it going this is Jon McLennan and with Guitar Control, we’re looking at a Classic called “Get Ready” originally by Smokey Robinson but we’re going to be looking at a live version by Rare-Earth and I’m going to break down all the guitar parts for you we’re going to learn that main riff how to play during the verse the chorus and how some of the chords are embellished and then of course the bridge as well.
We start off we’ve got two slightly distorted guitar tones and we’re going to play this riff which sounds like this, so I’m up here third finger 12th fret 4th string and I do two of those then you drop back a whole step to 10th fret and then back up to 12 kind of a seesaw between those notes then back to 10 to 10. So the 1st measure with my right hand I like doing all down strokes so I’m just going down, down, down, like hitting the nail right on the head kind of sound I don’t know it just really direct and strong.
The 2nd measure goes 12, 12, 10, and we’re doing single notes there then we move to what’s called double stops which is where you hold down two notes at a time and I’m doing that by taking my third finger and sort of smooshing it down at the 12th fret on the 2nd and 3rd strings and then you go to 10, 10, so the 2nd measure might shake those notes a little bit you’ll hear that all the time whether it’s classic rock or the blues or using that kind of Jimi Hendrix 1 and 2 and 3, basically it would be 8th notes one and that’s tied then the 3 comes into 1. So if we put the 1st measure together with the 2nd measure which completes this intro riff we get 1 and 3 you get these little 8th note rests in there, like this one and rest them.
So the way I do that is I’m playing the note and I just disengaged lifting up and then I also mute with my right hand a lot of dampening and go out keeping the wrist tight, you know when you play as far as your timing is incredibly important and then also when you let off the note it’s also really important to feel and then we come in with sort of some power chords and this is when the melody comes in something like that on the melody so what I would do is I would play these power chords and I do it kind of weird I use my first finger and my pinky so I’m going to play 5th fret on the 5th string then I’m going to reach up with my pinky play the 7th fret on the 4th string and you can use your 1st and 3rd if you want either scoop I’m just playing two notes and the trick here is to dampen all the other strings so that you know your 6th string is covered by your first finger here it creeps up just enough is what I see all the time is people find power for the room they’re not moving and all these other notes are ringing on top instead of it sounding tight like this
All I’m doing is relocating this shape around the guitar so 5, 7, and I’m going to do two of those then I’m going to drop it down 2 frets and move back up just like this just like a wrist this is just like a power chord version of it okay so one and then the drop down 5 on the 3rd fret, 5th fret do 2 of those back up and 3, then I come up one string 2, 3, and 5, this is a G power chord on the 6th string and the 5th string and then I move down to 1 and 3, so that’s the 2nd measure and that’s like this is actually doing part of having a G chord, follow by an F chord , here’s your G power chord see if you have power chord so it all comes together it’s a similar thing. So measure 1, and 2, of the verse put together sound like this, so if I play that into my looper pedal you can hear what the melody sounds like on top of them, so that’s an attempt there at the melody so you can basically hear how that that rhythm part works underneath the song and that leads us to the chorus we’re going to look at some big barre chord.
For the chorus we start out on an F bar chord, you can just give a big whole note or and the way that I play that is 1, 3, 3, 2, 1,1, move down to a B flat bar chord that’s 1, 3, 3, sometimes I use my finger sometimes I’ll use my pinky their change goes down but for now just pick one pinky to your third finger and stick with it so it’s really comfortable, yes we got a little lead in 3rd fret or 5th fret 3rd fret and then I hammer-on to a G minor chord which is basically I’m using my thumb and skip a string 5, 3, 3,3, and Jimi Hendrix style then a C barre chord 3, 5, 5, 5, there’s a little kind of pick up in that member have a cool little riff it comes off the C chord so I’m going 3 you slide in with your third finger to the 5th fret drop your first finger play the 3rd fret 5 pull off 2 and 3 then of course you can play any inversion of these chords that you like and you don’t have to do the little pickups and embellishments that I’m doing like the simplest way I could think of playing this would be like form our board and then the second time you coming out of that C and you’re back to the 1st part again the power cord part and you do another verse so let’s put it all together here is the chorus once which is through that chord progression twice and then we’ll go back to the main riff there so here we got 1, 2, 3, and then the last part of the song is the bridge.
The last part of this tune is the bridge and it does some cool rhythmic hits where the whole band hits certain chords on certain rhythms I’m going to break it down for you here we go so coming out of that saxophone solo we’re basically playing the main riff and then from there you come up to a G major barre chord which would be 3, 5, 5, 4, 3, grabbed the high note if you want just five strings and then then you go to the A by relocating that two frets higher so three times then you go up one fret to the 6th fret is the B flat chord and you go 16th notes 1 and 2 and then you play a G and then you’re back good.
I really hope that this video lesson inspires you to keep practicing and learning more songs on guitar it really is a lot of fun and if you want more information click on the annotation on your screen the iCard if you’re on mobile you can check out some of the courses available from guitar control.com. Make sure to subscribe on our You Tube Channel and we’ll see you in our next video lessons, thanks for watching.
