Come As You Are Guitar Lesson - INTRO, CHORDS & STRUMMING

Hey, guitar enthusiast Lauren Bateman here. We're doing a very special song by Nirvana called Come as you are. So let's get into the lesson.

So you guys see I got the Red Ivan is electric out because this song needs an electric guitar. I don't do electric very often, but I really like this song because this is actually one of the first songs I think that I ever learned when I started playing guitar. And I love Nirvana songs because they have these really cool bass lines that are pretty simple. And that's mostly what we're doing for this intro. Let me play it through through so you guys can hear what it's going to sound like, and then we'll go over how we're going to play it.

So you can hear. All we're doing is really playing a baseline that is very repetitive. I mean, if you learn this intro to come as you are, it's pretty much 80% of the entire song. So let's talk about what's happening here. So I'm not going to get too much into the rhythm. Hopefully you guys know what the melody of this baseline sounds like. So we're going to use that to guide our rhythm. So there is a little pickup. And for this song, just to keep things simple, if I say fret one, we're going to use our first finger. If I say fret two, we're going to use our second finger. Okay, fret one, first finger. Fret two, second finger. So this pickup starts with open, open one on the top string.

So open, open one.

That's the first thing. Kind of sounds like Jaws.

Okay, so it's open, open one. That's our little pickup to get the song started. And then we're going to come to the second fret on the top string. So so far, the first four notes are.

Now what we're going to do is we're just going to alternate between the A string and the E string. So we've got.

Now we're going to play the open, open a string back to the E string to the.

To the E string. And you don't have to remove that second finger. It can just stay. Let these notes ring out.

So so far we've got open, open, 1, 2, open 2, open 2 again.

Okay, that's our first notes. Now we're going to go backwards down the top string. So we're going to play two again.

Then one open.

Okay? So if we add that to the end, it's going to be open, open.

1, 2, open 2, open 2, 2, 1, open.

Now we're going to move our second finger down to the A string at the second fret, and we're going to play the second fret on the A string. And then two open E strings.

And then back down to the A string. Keep that second finger there on that A string. And then we're going to play open E string and then one. So let me play that all the way through from the beginning.

Open, open, 1, 2. Open, 2. Open, 2, 2. 1. Open 2. Open, open, 2, open 1.

And then you get right back into the loop here. So once you get to this one on the end, you ignore the first three notes we played. You go right back to the two in the beginning, and we'll show you on the diagram over there so that it's clear. So here's the first time through.

Open, open 1, 2. Open, 2. Open 2, 2, 1. Open 2. Open, open, 2. Open 1, 2.

So that's the 2. You go right back into it.

So it's 2. Open 2, open 2, 2, 1. Open two. Open, open, two. Open 1, 2. Open.

In 2, 2, 1.

So that is the two, and it's just a loop at this point. So let me play it really slow. Okay, I'm going to put the rhythm in because all of this is 8th notes for the most part. There's a couple parts where we hold the notes a little bit longer. So let me play through. You guys listen, and if you want to play along, I'll play it through a little bit slower. Here we go.

1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and Sam, more time.

So that's the intro to the song. What we're going to do next is we're going to move into some strumming to see what happens here on the chorus and the bridge sections of the song. Hey, guys, real quick. Hope you're enjoying the video. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel and turn on your notifications. This way. YouTube will let you know when I release more videos just like this one. So this chorus section is where things change up a bit. So at this point, we've played that intro probably about 12 measures to get through the intro and the verse. And then we're going to play two chords. One of them is a power chord. It's an F sharp power chord. So our first finger is going to be on the second fret of the top string. The third finger is going to be on the fourth fret of the A string. And you're going to play both of those at the same time. Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to try to mute the rest of the strings with my third finger because if I let them ring, it's going to sound really bad. So try and mute the rest of the strings or just really focus on trying to hit those top two, top two strings of that chord. So that is your F sharp power chord. So the second chord we're going to play is an ASUS 2. Okay. Bottom five strings. And it's going to be either your second and third fingers or your first and second. Whatever is easier for you. Since I'm coming from the F power or that F sharp power chord.

I'd.

Probably use my first and second but. Or second, third, whatever is more muscle memory for you. Do whatever is easiest for you. And that's going to be the easiest way to play this. I'll show you a strum way in a second is you're just going to hold the chord for four count.

One, two, three, four. One, two, three, Four. One, two, three, 4. One, two, three, FOUR. One, two, three, fourth. One, two, three, fOUR. Two, three, four.

That's all you're gonna do on that part. Now, if you want to get into a little bit more of a strum that you could play on this, I would recommend doing like a down, down.

Up, up, down, up, down, down, up, up, down, up. One, two, and.

And four. And it's not really like a beginner strumming pattern. So if an absolute beginner, just stick with the one strum every four counts. But this would sound like this.

All right, so that's how that would sound for that.

So it's down, down, up, up.

And you can hear that muting. I'm muting that power chord.

Down, down, up, up, down, up, down, down, up, up, down, up, down, down, up, up, down, up, down, down, up. Okay, so it's 1, 2, and. And 4. And 1, 2, and.

And four.

And.

One more time.

And then after that, you would just jump right back into that intro lick for another verse. So after you play through more of this little intro lick, we come to the bridge section where he says, well, I swear I don't have a gun. Obviously, he did have a gun. But we're going to be playing again two power chords. You're going to be playing a B5 power chord, okay, which is the second fret on the A string, the fourth fret on the D string. And then you can just slide this up to the fifth fret and the seventh fret.

Those are our two chords.

So we got one, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. 1, 2, 3, 4. One, 2, 3, 4.

And if you want to add a strumming pattern, just do eighth notes.

1 and 2 and 3 and 4. 1 and 2 and 3 and four. 1 and 2 and 3 and4.

All downs.

And I did hit that top string you heard. I didn't have it muted one time, and it rang through. So make sure your first finger is muting that top string on these chords, because we don't. We don't want it to ring through or sound bad. So we go.

Okay, so practice muting. That's the downside of electric guitar. We have to do a lot more muting on string. All right, guys, so I'm just gonna do a little bit of a playthrough on these parts just so you guys can hear it. I'll just do the intro part a couple times. I'm not gonna do it 12 times in a row, but just so that you can hear each part kind of as it's played out.

Sam.

And there you go. That's the gist of the entire song. I hope you guys enjoyed this video. Make sure to give me a thumbs up so that more users just like you see this video on YouTube. Couple more videos are going to pop up over here. Go check those out. I really hope you guys enjoyed this lesson, and I'll see you guys very soon.