Edge of Seventeen Acoustic Guitar Lesson - COOL Intro + Strumming
A step-by-step acoustic lesson by Lauren Bateman teaching how to play the famous intro and accompaniment to "Edge of Seventeen" (Stevie Nicks). Core elements: a fast single‑note intro played as 16th notes over open chords (C, D, E minor) using alternate picking; the single-note riff uses A‑string notes (7th fret = E over Em, 3rd fret = C over C, 5th fret = D over D). For solo acoustic performance Bateman shows a simpler eighth‑note down‑stroke approach with palm muting for the verses and a more open, accented eighth‑note pattern (with a quick 16th up‑strum flourish on chord changes) for the chorus. The song’s basic chord progression is C → D → E minor → E minor; the bridge consists of four measures of E minor then four measures of C before returning. Practical tips include keeping the pick close to the A string ("hugging"), starting slow on the 16th‑note pattern, where to place the palm for muting (just before the bridge/soundhole area), and lyric cues for chord changes.
Questions this video answers
January 28, 2023
C major, D major, E minor
C → D → E minor → E minor
7th fret (E) over E minor; 3rd fret (C) over C; 5th fret (D) over D
16th notes (16 notes per measure)
Chapters
The edge of 17 is a super fun song by Stevie Nicks. It has this really great intro and some cool strumming. The intro is going to sound a little bit something like this.
But before I go through how to play that intro step by step, let's talk about the three chords to we're going going to be using to play through this song.
So the open chords that we're going to be using is a C major chord, a D major chord, and an E major chord. Now, there's a couple different ways you can play this when you listen to the record. Mostly the guitar is just playing that individual note part that I just played that intro and it gets played over the chords. But I'm going to show you a couple different ways to play this. Especially if you're someone who wants to sing and play this and you don't have someone else to play with to kind of better to strum along with the chords. But first, before we get into that, I want to show you that cool intro. It is a 16th note pattern. It is fast. That's a tricky part about this intro. The notes aren't hard. All right, so I told you the chords we're using are C, D and E minor. And as we change the chords, we're going to change which note we play over which chord. All right, so ideally you would have one guitar player playing the open chords and one guitar player playing playing these single notes. So 16th notes, I mentioned those. If you don't know what those are, 16th notes means, you're going to play 16 notes per measure. So for the C chord, you would play the third fret on this A string and you would just count it 16 times like this. One E and A two E and A three and A four E and A one E and A two E and a three E and A four E and A. So that's how we count 16th notes. One E and A two E & A three E and A four E and a one E and A two E and A 3E and A 4E and A. And I'm playing them as down, up picks. Down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up. So if I play this seventh fret on the top string.
You can see my picks just going down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up. Now this is where you're going to work on your alternate picking technique. That's what that is. Down, up, down, up, down, up. You could try and do this all as downs, but especially if you're a beginner is going to be very, very Hard. And, you know, if you listen to the record, I'm pretty sure they're doing alternate picking because it's so much easier to go fast with that alternate picking. Now, you might need to start slow. You might need to start at this speed. 1e and a 2e and a 3e and a 4e and. Okay, then maybe you pick up the speed a little bit.
2E and a 3. Then you go full speed.
Now, the hardest thing about this lick is part of it's the speed, but it's actually keeping the pick around this A string. Okay, so we're trying to hug the A string as closely as possible when we're doing this alternate picking.
You can see it's hard to see maybe in the close up, but my pick is just going past and hugging up and down around that A string. So let's go over the notes. We're going to be playing over each of these chords. So for our E minor chord, we're going to be playing the seventh fret on this A string. Now, the reason why is this is an E note. E goes over E minor. All right. And then for our C chord, we're going to play the third fret. Because this is a C note. So it goes over the C chord. And then for the D chord, we're going to play this fifth note. And can you guess what note that is? Yes, this is a D note. So over the E minor chord, we're going to play the seventh fret or the E note. For the C chord, we're going to play the third fret or the C note. And then for the D chord, we're gonna play the D note, which is the fifth fret on the A string. So the song starts out with us just hanging out on the seventh fret.
And we're just hanging out on the seventh fret. What we're gonna do is we gotta listen to the lyrics because she's.
Gonna go just like a white wing.
Dove when she gets to the word white, that's when we're going for the C note because that's where we change to the C chord. Okay, so. So it'll be just hanging out on the seventh.
Fret.
Just like a wide wing dove sings a song. Sounds like you're singing Ooh baby, ooh.
Set.
Ooh. Just like a wide wing dove sings the songs out that you're singing. Ooh baby, ooh said.
Oo. Now, if you need the notes with the lyrics, I do have them on my website, so you can follow along there. And that's the basis of the intro of the song and most of the verses. Now this theme is going to come in and out and you can see I can play and sing over that. But I want to show you something really cool that you can do. Especially if you're an acoustic guitar player and you want to get a little bit more rhythmic with it and you want to perform this for people because it gets a little boring if you're just doing that the entire time. Everyone will know it. I think it's a great intro and you should probably do it for the intro and the first verse. But when we get into the next verse in the choruses, I'm going to show you what I usually do when I perform this song. Now you could apply the 16th note strumming pattern to this. You could easily go, you know.
Just like a one wing dove. Sing the.
Songs. I'm watching. It's a lot of strumming. I think it's. I think it's just a little bit too much. Could you do that? Yes, you could. I recommend coming down to eighth notes. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And just doing all down strums. Okay. And I'm not going to be hitting the entire chord. I'm just kind of going to be hitting the top parts of the chords. What I usually do is I'm going to show you. I usually do a little bit of palm muting on the verses and then I open it up for the choruses and do something a little bit different. First. Let's start with the verse. So the chord progression for this song is very repetitive. It is C, D, E minor, E minor. And it just keeps repeating that throughout the entire song. Except for when we get to the bridge part. Something different happens there. But I'll tell you about that when we get there. So what I would do is I would start with just my eighth notes. One and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2. And here we go again.
One more time. Try it again.
So you can see with my strumming hand, I'm just doing all downs. Down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down. So if I were to put this over that second verse, this is what it's going to sound like. And when we get to the chorus, I'm going to show you how you can change things up a little bit dynamically because the song opens up on the chorus. So we want to try and do something different. So if I were going to do this, it would say, and the.
Days go by Like a strand in the wind in the web that is my own it begins again.
Said to my friend maybe nothing else.
Matters.
Okay, so you can hear how this works over the verses. And it's a lot easier to sing. You don't have to worry about these 16th notes.
And then singing, you know, singing lyrics over something like that. If you have a friend, it's great to let your friend play that part and you play the strumming part. So I want to give you a little spice that you guys can add in. This is what I like to do on the verses. It's called palm muting. So instead of just going.
It's going to sound like this. Ready, two, three, four.
Nice. It gives it, like, a really cool, dark and deep sound. So that's called palm muting. And what I'm doing is I'm putting this point of my palm on. So I'm only really playing the top three or four strings of each chord. So I'm trying to mute that with my hand. Now there's a sweet spot. Every guitar has its own sweet spot. And I recommend starting at the sound hole. Put this palm right on the sound hole. You know, play an E minor chord and get the top, like, three strings and just work your way backwards.
Slowly. So here, how it's starting to beef up. We're not there yet. There it is. The guitar is going to open up, but if you go too far, the strings will start ringing through. It's usually just before maybe like a quarter inch or a few, you know, maybe like a centimeter before the bridge. Okay, so just before the bridge.
And you'll get that nice, chunky sound. This is too much. Near the sound hole. Not beefy enough. There it is. So the guitar's gonna open up, and you're gonna actually hear the sound of the chord coming through. And I like doing this on the verses because, like I said, the chorus, it's the same chord progression. So how do we differentiate this and make it interesting? Right? So we're gonna.
Go. Well, he seems so brokenhearted Something within him.
But the moment that I first laid eyes on him all alone on the edge of.
17 here comes the.
Chorus.
Ready? Just like a wide wing love sings a song Sounds like she's singing Ooh, baby who said Just like the wide winds that you.
Sing.
So you can hear There's a little bit more going on on this chorus. So what are we doing? Let's Go through that step by step. So strumming pattern that I like to do is I like to try on the C and D chords, I like to try and accent the one. So you heard some strums coming through louder. So I like to accent the one in the and after two. So it's going to sound like this. I'm going to play the C chord. So it's going to be 1 and 2 and 3 and 4, and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And so kind of getting the lower notes for the other strums. And then when I accent, trying to get the whole. The whole chord. So that's going to be.
Okay. So 1 and 2 and 3 and 4, and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And you would do the same thing on the D chord. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. So if we put them both together, we'll just do C and D back and forth. Ready? One, two. Here we go.
Two more times.
Now, if you need to slow me down, you can always use the settings cog down there or pause the video. Practice that rhythm. And what we're going to do on the E chord. Now, I like to keep it a straight eighth note, just like we've been doing, but I like to accent the ooze. All right, so if I take.
It just like a white window sing, the song sounds like you're.
Singing.
And you don't have to worry that much about the timing because the. The strumming lines up with the oo. So I like to accent those oohs just because I. If I'm singing it, it's just my brain connects with the strumming very well there. Now, you may have heard me insert a little flourish in here, and I do that when I get excited, especially sounds like this. I think it makes a good transition between chords. So what I'm doing on the very end is I'm adding a 16th note. So it's. Instead of just going 1 and 2 and 3 and 4, and I'm going 1 and 2 and 3 and four and a. I'm adding an up strum on the very end. You probably heard that on the last demonstration after the D chord, I did the C chord. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4, and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and up. So it's very quick. Down, up. Let me do it again.
Okay, Hear that one more time.
And you can do this on each chord transition in the chorus. And if 16th notes are not your strong point, don't worry about it. The eighth notes Will work perfectly fine. So let me go through this chorus for you guys to hear that. And then we're going to talk about our bridge. Then we're going to put everything back together. Well, just like.
The.
Songs I.
Sing.
And then right back into the verse.
So right back into that palm unit if you want to go that route. So there's one more part of the song before I do a little bit of a playthrough for you, and that's going to be the bridge section of the song. There's really not a lot different that happens here. You can either use the single notes or you can use the eighth notes. Drumming, you're just staying on an E minor chord for a few measures and then a C chord for a few measures. You're basically playing four measures of E minor, four measures of C. Back to four measures of E minor, four measures of C and. And then we hop right back into the normal part of the song. All right, so I'm going to count this in for you guys. If you need to use the settings cog to slow me down, go right ahead down there. I won't be doing the single notes, but I will count you in so that you can do that. You can play right over the chords with me. I'm going to pick up right at the chorus. Okay, so Here we go. One E and A two E and A three E and A four E and A one E and A two E and A 3E and A four E and A one and two.
And just like a wide wing dub sings a song Sounds like she's singing Ooh baby, ooh say ooh Just like the white window says a song sounds like she sing it Ooh baby, woo say ooh the days go by Like a strand in the wind in the web that is my own I begin again Said to my friend baby nothing else mattered.
He was no more.
Than a baby.
Seemed so broken hearted than.
Him Totally messed up the timing on that. That's.
Okay. But the moment that I first laid aside on him all alone on the edge.
Of.
17.
Chorus ready? Just like the loud window Sing the songs I like singing.
Just like the love window.
Singing.
Sorry for the timing snafu on that lyric there. I always mess that part up. But see, I'm not perfect. So I just. I leave these in there because I want you guys to see I'm not perfect. I still make mistakes too. And I've been playing guitar for over 20 years, so don't feel so bad about where you're at. I'M still making mistakes too. Now, if you guys enjoyed the intro piece to this song, then I highly recommend you go check out my Finger Dexterity series over there where I do intros to a bunch of really popular songs like Lean On Me, Crazy Train, and a bunch more. Check those out if you want to work on your Finger Dexterity today.
