Happy Together Guitar Lesson With FUN Percussive Strumming

Happy Together by the Turtles has a lot of great guitar techniques that I'm going to show you in this video. But first, let's talk about the different chords that we can use to play along to this song. Now before we go over the chords, I just want you to know we are going to be using a capo at the second fret here. Okay. And the chords we're mainly going to be focusing are four chords and they are the C chord, the E minor chord, the D chord, and unfortunately a B major chord. But there is a simple fix to this. If you're someone who's not keen on bar chords, you could always just play a B5 power chord.

When you see what we're going to do strumming wise, you'll see why that works. You could actually play all of these as power chords. You could play, you know, the E5 power chord. You could play a C5, a D5 and B5. You can do this for the verse sections if you want to go that way too. Now on the choruses things change up a little bit. We're going to introduce an E minor chord and we're also going to introduce this B minor 7 chord. Now again, it will sound much better with the full chord but if you need an easy fix, just play a D chord on the bottom three strings and only try and hit those bottom three.

It's not going to sound as full as this B minor 7 chord, but it will work to get you through the song. So let's talk about the different strumming patterns we're going to be using this song and let's talk about the verse first.

Now if you need to follow along with my chord and ly sheet, just go right over my website and you can follow along with the strumming patterns and chords right over there. So let's start with our E minor chord since that's what this song starts on. And the option I'm going to give you, simple way is just to play four down strums.

This song has a very strong downbeat. There's a lot of drive to it. Now the downbeat is the part when you tap your foot, you hit the ground. It's the one, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.

And if you hear I'm not strumming the entire chord. I'm not getting those bright trebly notes. I'm just hitting kind of the top two or three strings.

That's why I said.

You can use power chord options for this verse as well. But I'm going To show you how to. How to spice it up. Since this isn't an absolute beginner lesson, we're going to spice up this to make it sound more like the record. So we're going to introduce some palm muting here. And the strumming pattern we're going to be doing, it kind of has a swing to it. All right, so it's going to be 1, 2, 3, a 4, a. 1, 2, 3, a four, a 1, 2, 3, a Four, a. It's going to sound like this. One, two, ready? M.

So what am I doing here? I'm getting that palm muted sound. All right, so for those of you who aren't familiar with palm muting, I have my palm resting just in front of the bridge section right here of my guitar. Okay. And it gives me that beefy, chunky sound. Now if you're putting your hand down, it sounds like this kind of tinny. Just move that palm of your hand back towards the bridge until it opens up and you get that beefy sound. That's palm muting. And what I'm doing is I'm going down, down, down, up, down. So I'm lifting up my hand on the up strum. Okay. That's why this isn't an absolute beginner lesson because we are doing some intricate strumming things here. So we've got 1, 2, 3, a 4, up. Okay, try it again. 1, 2, 3, a, 4, up. Okay, so it's.

Now, what I like to do when I'm playing this song is so all these chords, we're playing them twice. So it's an E minor chord twice. We have a D chord twice, a C chord twice, and then the B chord twice. And usually I will play that pattern on the first chord and then the second chord. I just typically tend to do four down strums. All right, so what's this going to sound like over an actual chord progression? Let's play through the verse right now. One, two.

Imagine me and you. I do think about you day and night. It's only right to think about the girl you love and hold it tight, so happy together.

If I should call you up, invest a dime, you say you belong to me, use my mind. Imagine how the world will be so very fine so happy together.

Which takes us into the chorus. But there is a special strumming pattern I want to show you that could be a great connecting piece between this verse section and this chorus section, which is going to open up the song at this point. So we're sticking with a triplet Pattern. That's what we were doing before. So a triplet is 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And so a lot of you probably used to quarter note rhythms. Four beats. 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. And then we have eighth notes, which is 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3. M4 and. And then we have triplets. Triplets. Okay. Triple. Three notes for every beat. So it's 1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4 and a. So it has a swing feel to it. Now, I like using this strumming pattern on the B chord, particularly the second B chord of the measure. And we want to take this triplet pattern and we're going to strum for every single beat. So the pattern. The strumming pattern is going to sound like this and then I'll explain it. Ready? And.

Did you hear that? It's 1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4 and a. So what's that going to sound like? Just so you can hear it coming from this verse into the chorus.

Imagine how the world would be so we find so happy together.

So you can see maybe where. Why I like this strumming pattern for that transition. You don't have to do this, but I would consider this like a little Lauren spice that you can throw in a little extra. Because when you're performing and you're by yourself, throwing in these different dynamics makes things exciting for people. So what am I doing? We have this B chord and yes, I'm playing the full power bar chord. But you can do this on the. You could do it on the power chord as well. And the strumming pattern is going to be one and up played down, up, down. So we're alternating down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up. So it's 1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4 and a. One more time. 1 and a 2 and a 3 & a 4 and.

A. Played down, up, down, up, down.

Up, down, up, down, up, down, up. So if I put that over the chord. Now we've got.

Again. Ready? And.

Let's try and loop it a couple times. Now go a little bit slower and I'll count for you. So it's going to be 1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4 and a 1 and a 2 and a 3 & a 4 and a. Down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up.

And then when you play it up to full speed, it sounds really cool.

Again. 1 and a 2 and.

A 3 and a 4.

And a. So you might have to pause, you might have to practice doing this before you can actually throw it into that transition piece. But it's a really cool strumming pattern, I think you should know. And it works really well in this song. Now, you probably heard from the little preview, this is where the song really opens up on the chorus. We get loud, we get big, and we're going to change the strumming pattern here. Really love when you put multiple strumming patterns into a song. So what are we going to do here? So once again, we are sticking with a triplet feel. And the strumming pattern for this is just going to be down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up. Okay, so it's going to be one, a two, a three, a four, a one, a two, a three or a four, a one, a 2, a 3, a 4. It's going to sound like this.

Now, you probably heard I'm accenting a couple of the beats. I'm accenting the 2 and I'm accenting the 4. So it's basically 1.

A 2. Okay, 1, a 2, a 3, a 4, a 1, a 2.

A 3,.

So giving kind of that snare drum feel to these different chords. So this is what that chorus section is going to sound like.

So you can hear how that accent really drives the song forward. This is a very energetic song, so you want to make sure you get that energy into the song with your strumming. So what I'm doing now is I'm going to do a quick playthrough of a verse into that chorus and I'm going to incorporate that triplet strum. You can always use the settings cog to slow me down. And if you are a member of my fellowship of the strings community, I will make sure to put the secret link to the full play along for you in the community. One, two, one, two. Here.

We go.

Imagine me and you. I do think about you day and night it's only right to think about the girl you love. Hold it tight. So happy together.

She call you up, invest a dime you say you belong to me. Babies were mine Imagine how the world would be so, so very fine so happy together.

I can't see me loving nobody but you for all my life.

When you're with me, baby, the skies will be blue for all.

My life.

Now, if you're interested in learning more cool palm muting rhythms, then I highly recommend you check out my Summer of 69 video right over there.