I really hate all those clickbait YouTube videos.
You probably know the ones.
Those that promise to teach you “10 eazy songs using just 2 chordz”.
They bug me for the simple fact that no song is easy.
All songs take work of course.
…But that’s not the only reason these videos bug me.
The other reason is that the songs taught in these videos are often boring.
And some people don’t like to hear that.
…But after a while, most students come to this realisation….
Most songs out there taught on guitar are often pretty generic, “samey”, and usually need the singing to sound good.
…But there’s a more unusual and highly neglected way of learning songs.
It’s doing something I recommend and love to do a lot.
That is to simply:
Play the melody of a song.
The melody = the hummable part that everyone recognises (not the less exciting bits).
The way I usually teach melodies is in fingerstyle arrangements.
This is where we play the melody with the fingers and the bass notes with the thumb and it creates an epic sound.
The trouble is though, fingerstyle arrangement can take a bit of work and many of you like to sing and play at the same time too.
So, is there a way to play melodies in a simple manner AND strum songs in a smooth way that doesn’t require blood, sweat, and tears?
Why, yes, of course!
Here’s a three-step process that ANYONE can do…
1 – Learn the pure melody of a song on its own
2 – Strum the chords to accompany the melody using “chord anchors”
3 – Jam them both in a variety of ways
That’s it.
Doing the above is loads of fun and can be easier than most other things on the guitar.
You basically get the best of both worlds.
You get the melody which everyone will recognise (as long as the song choice is a good one).
And you get to strum the chords that go along with it.
This gives you lots of options, meaning you can…
Play the melody on your own, jam the melody while someone else strums the chords, play the melody to a backing track or the original recording, sing and strum as you play, create a hybrid version, and lots more…
This means lots of options and lots of fun.
…Especially when you use a whole bunch of custom-made backing tracks.
…And this is exactly what you get in the new Dan Thorpe Acoustic Academy lessons for the month of July.
Here you will learn one of the most well-loved songs of all time, using the 3 steps above (including how to play “chord anchors”).
Check out this stunning song and find out more about the Dan Thorpe Acoustic Academy
I haven’t seen anyone teach songs like this before.
Have a great day and remember, keep it simple!
Dan Thorpe
Guitar Domination
P.S. This post was originally taken from Dan Thorpe’s private email list. To get blog posts like this sent to you which are full of great tips to make fingerpicking, strumming, and learning guitar more enjoyable (especially if you are over 40) join Dan’s list. It’s 100% free, HERE.
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