Come To My Window Guitar Tutorial with Intermediate Guitar Strumming

Hello, guitar enthusiast Lauren Bateman here. And we're going to do one of my favorites. We're going to do Melissa Etheridge's Come to My Window, which is more of an intermediate guitar song. So I'm going to show you how to play through the strumming patterns for the verse for the chorus, and some other cool little picking things you can do if you choose. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to show you very briefly what this should sound like and then we're going to get into the tutorial for the different parts of the song. So check it out.

All right, so if you can hear from that brief demonstration, we're going to be doing a lot of strumming in this song and it's pretty cool because there's a few different things we can do and it definitely changes between the verse and the chorus. So let's talk about this intro, which is probably the easiest part of the song. If you need the chord chart for the song, you can always go to my website. I'll make sure to put a link in the description so that you guys can go and grab that. So this intro, which is also a first chorus, we have a strumming pattern of it's going to be G and C splitting a measure followed by A minor 7 and D splitting a measure. And this is probably the easiest part of the song because all we're going to do is a single strum. So we're going to do G, C, A minor 7D. And then we just repeat that crawling.

Sideway by the light of the moon and the. Then you do it again.

Come to my window. And that gets us into kind of the interlude and the verse. So what we're going to do next is we're going to go over to the interlude, which requires a little bit more of an intricate strumming and picking style. Now, Melissa's version is always going to sound a little bit better and a little bit fuller because she uses a 12 string guitar, which is one of the few guitars I don't actually own. I'll have to put it on my list to get a 12 string guitar. So you're going to hear a lot more strings and a lot more sound coming from her. And that's the reason why she's got six more strings strings than I do or probably than most of you do. So keep that in mind. Now, there's a couple ways we can do these verses. We can try and mimic a little bit of what Melissa is doing, or we could just go straight into the strumming. When I play live, I usually just go straight into the strumming. But I want to give you guys some options. So first, let's talk about the chord progression for this verse. So the verse is. It's three chords over and over again. It's C and G splitting a measure followed by a full measure of a D chord. So C and G splitting a measure followed by a D chord. But the strumming pattern that we're going to use is a little bit syncopated on this song. So let's talk about that. So you've probably seen some of my videos where we talk about hopping the rhythms, and that's because the chords change not on a down strum, but rather on an up strum. So that's going to happen in this song. So our strumming pattern for the C.

Chord is going to be down, down, down. So that's 1, 2, and down, down, down.

And we're gonna do an up strum on the 16th note, the ah, after two. And that's gonna be the change for our G chord.

So it's gonna be one, two and A. Down, down, down, up.

One more time.

Down, down, down, up. So it's one, two and up.

Let's talk about the rest of the pattern that we're gonna do for the G, which is also tricky for a lot of people because there's going to be. We're basically doing four up strums in a row. So for the C chord, it's going.

To be down, down, down.

And then we're going to switch to G and it's going to be up.

Up, up, up, down, up.

So the G is going to be.

Up, up, up, up, down, up. So C is down, down, down, up, up, up, up, down, up.

And then you would just play the.

Whole thing on D. Down, down, down, up, up, up, up, down, up. Again, C. Down, down, down, up, up, up, up, down, up, down, down, down, up, up, up, up, down, up.

So that's the strumming pattern that we're going to use for the verse. And Melissa does a really interesting thing. What she does is she kind of starts with some picking and then she really into the strumming. So let's talk a little bit about that. Now again, like I said, Melissa's is always going to sound a little bit more fuller because she's got a lot more strings to work with. And on a 12th string, the octave is a little bit higher. So you're going to hear probably a lot More high pitched notes in her version versus our version. But all we're going to be doing is we're going to just be randomly picking notes. We're not going to be strumming the whole chord, but we always want to start with like the bass note of the chord.

So the pattern I'm using is it's.

Going to be down, down, up, up, down, up.

I promise I'm not hitting any particular things. I'm getting the bass notes which would be the fifth string for the C chord, the sixth string for the G chord and the fourth string for the D chord. And outside of that I'm hitting the bass note and then I'm trying to ignore the bass note and just stick with the bright more treble side of the note. So we have down da up, up.

Down, up, down, up, up, down, up, down, up, up, down, up, down.

And then you can do that again.

Down D. Up, up, down, up, down, up, up, down, up, down.

And then I would go into the strumming.

And that's kind of a cool way that you can transition and, and build some dynamics into that verse. So now let's talk about the pre chorus before we get into the actual chorus. So the next part we're going to talk about is the interlude. It's really only four measures and the strumming pattern for the first half is going to remain the same but just going to do something a little different on the N. So let's talk about the progression. The progression is E minor in C splitting A chord followed by a D chord. And then you repeat that again. E minor in C splitting a measure followed by the D chord. The strumming pattern we're going to keep the same. The E minor can take over the first half.

Down, down, down.

And then the C can take over the second half.

Up, up, up, up, down, up.

So nothing has changed there. And then D you would do the full strumming pattern. Now the next time through again we're going to do the same strumming pattern for the E minor and C and then the D we're going to do a build. So all eighth note down strums.

So we're going to build into this chorus. So it's going to sound like this.

Here comes the build.

And that's going to get us into the chorus which is the next part we're going to go over. So the chorus uses the same chords as the verse just in a slightly different pattern. So it's going to be the G chord first and then the C Chord. They're still splitting a measure, but it's G, C and then D. And that's your entire chorus for the chord progression. Thanks for keeping it simple, Melissa. The strumming pattern, on the other hand, is not so simple. So let's talk about the first half. The C and G are relatively easy. So we're just gonna do down, down.

Down, up, down, down, down, up.

All we're gonna do for the C and G chord.

Down, down, down, up. Down, down, down, up.

One more time.

Down, down, down, up, down, down, down, up.

Very simple, the D ch.

All the embellishments and all the fun stuff. So let's talk about the D chord. So looking at my strumming pattern here, I have 1, 2, E and A. That's how it starts. That's simple enough, right?

So 1, 2, E and A.

But then we have a couple ups after that. So we have the E on the three and the up.

So it's one, two, E and E up. So it's down, down, up, down, up, up, up.

So three ups in a row on this one.

So it's 1, 2, E and A. Up, up.

And then at the very end, we're just going to put four E and A.

Down, up, down, up.

At the very end.

So the D is down, down, up, down, up, up, down, up, down, up.

Sorry, I had to look at the strum pattern.

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

That is our strumming pattern for the chorus, and that's what we're going to do. Now. I should let you know that when I play this song, I sometimes don't stick to just this strumming pattern. And I'm sure Melissa does the same thing A lot of times. Our hands just kind of take over whatever we're doing. So we want to make sure, you know where we're improvising. We're being fluid. We're not really thinking about the strumming pattern, especially if we're singing the song. The next section we're going to talk about is our bridge section. And we have a bit of a chord progression change here as well as some timing changes. So let's talk about the bridge. So first let's talk about the strumming pattern that we're going to use for this bridge. Yes, another strumming pattern. So this is another kind of intricate 16th note strumming pattern. Let's start off with our E minor chord, since that is the first chord of our bridge. So our strumming pattern Is going to be 1, 2, E. And so it's.

Down, up, down, up, down.

That's the strumming pattern. As I look at my laptop over here, if you're wondering why I'm looking that way. So we have 1, A, 2, E.

And right down, up, down, up, down.

And then the next part we're going to do another up, down, up, down. But it starts on the E of three. So it's E and A four.

Up, down, up, down.

So it's going to be one, A.

Two E and E and a four. Down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down.

That's the strumming pattern. There's one more section at the end. We're going to add an anda, A down, up to the very end. So it's going to be down, up.

Down, up, down, up, down, up, down, down, up.

Again the whole thing.

Down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, down, up.

And then we're going to start the first half of that. Actually 3/4 of it is going to be given to an A minor chord and the last down, down, up is going to be given to a D chord. We're splitting up these measures in an awkward timing now for this bridge. So the first part is going to.

Be down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up.

And we're going to switch to D.

On the down, down, down, up.

So it's going to be down, up.

Down, up, down, up, down, up, down, down, up.

And then the next chord we go to is C and then we repeat that. It's going to sound like this with the hops or with the transition in timing. It's.

So you really hear, I'm just on those. That D chord and that G chord for 1B. And then we jump over to A minor, which is fine because we stay on A minor for two measures and then we jump over to D for two measures. So I'm going to do is I'm going to play through the bridge very briefly and at the end we're going to jump into the picking version of the chord chorus that we did earlier. We did it on the verse, but this time we're going to do it on the chorus for the CG and D chords. So here's what it should sound like.

I don't care what they think.

I don't care what they say.

They know about their love.

Anyway.

Back to kicking.

And then we're gonna go back to Come to my window. But we're gonna keep picking.

Come, come to my window I'll be home I'll be home all dumbs.

I'm coming home.

And then right back into the chorus. In the actual song, she doesn't do that pause. She. She keeps playing through. When I perform this song live, I like to put that pause in there just for dramatic effect, because you've got.

This, you know, Come to my window, I'll be home. I'll be home.

So it does. It adds, like, a really cool dynamic effect, and people aren't expecting that break to be there, so it really gets their attention. After that point, we're back to the chorus, and that is Melissa Etheridge's Come to My Window. Really awesome song. As you can see, lots of cool picking patterns. So, like, this video, give me a cool comment. Don't forget to subscribe, and I'll see you guys in the next lesson. Video.