Have Fun Strumming & Picking THIS 90s Classic - Ironic Guitar Lesson

It's like rain.

On your wedding day It's a free ride.

When you are in a play it's the good advice.

That you just didn't take and who are the.

Music? If you are a 90s fan like I am, then I have a treat for you. It's Alanis Morissettes. Ironic, but there are a few different strumming parts we're gonna go, as well as some picking patterns that you might be interested in trying. So let's go over that step by step.

Now, first things first, we have a plethora of chords that we're going to be using throughout this song. And some of them might be foreign to you, okay? But we'll go through them one by one. Let's start with the basic chords. We have a D chord. We have an E minor chord. We have E minor 7. I like to use the bright G chord here on the choruses, we're going to have a C chord. We are going to have an F bar chord. Fortunately, it only comes in once on the choruses. So if you need to use an F major 7, you can use that as well if your F chord is not up to snuff yet. Now, let's talk about the interesting voicing chords we're going to be using. We're going to be using a D F sharp, okay? And I like to play this chord with the thumb on the top. And you're going to see why when I show you a chord transition to our next chord, which is going to be the GSUS2 chord. So watch my thumb. My thumb went from here. I lifted up the thumb, and then my second finger came up to the third fret on this top string, okay? It's going to be a GSUS2 chord. And you might not be familiar with that, but it has a very nice. Those suspended chords have a very nice open sound to them. So we would go from D F sharp, D F sharp to this gsus. And you can see here, it's just a single finger movement. And that's why I like using my thumb on the top here. The other chords we have are going to be playing a C major 7, okay? It looks like a C add 9, except the third finger is all the way down to the bottom string. And this next chord, which I wrote it down as a D6, add 11. Don't worry about the name of it. If you can play The C major 7 chord, all you have to do is slide it to the fifth fret relative to the capo. You guys can see I do have a capo here on the fourth fret. And this is your D6 add 11 that we're going to use on the intros and outros and bridges. Okay. You can already hear the sound of Alanis coming through here.

So I'm going to show you how to pick the intro section of this song. But first, I just want to get over the regular strumming pattern we're going to use for this intro as well as throughout the song. Now, this rhythm is going to be a 16th note rhythm. 16th notes. We count as 1e and a 2e and a 3e and a 4e and a 1e and a 2e and A 3e and a 4e. And the timing of this, this is going to be. If I wrote it down over here, it's one A two E and E and a four and A. And you're like, lauren, that's crazy. That's fine. If you can just remember it as down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, down, up. If I play that C major 7 chord, it's going to be down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up.

A little bit more up to speed would be like this.

So what did I do on the end of this intro? So you heard, I did one full measure of the strumming pattern on C major 7. I did one full strumming pattern on that D6 chord. I went back to the C major 7 and instead of playing that D6 chord again, I played the third fret on the bottom string. Then I played the second fret on the bottom string, third fret on the second string, and then open G chord. So it's going to be 3, 2 on the bottom string, 3 on the second string, open G string.

All right, so after we did that C major 7, we have down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, down, up.

So that takes care of our intro section of the song. And those songs are going to come in later, but we'll go over that when we get to that point. So let's talk about the verse. The verse is four chords that are going to repeat over and over again. So that's nice and easy for us. They are splitting a measure, though. So the first chord we have is that D slash, F sharp. Okay. Now, I am not going to play with my finger on the bottom string, mainly because we're going to be doing some picking for these verses, especially the early verses. There's not a lot of strumming, so I'm just going to be using my bottom three fingers and kind of ignoring that bottom string. And it makes going, as I showed you earlier, into that GSUS2 chord very easy. All you have to do is move the thumb. Second finger comes up and hits that third fret on the top string. Okay, so there's chord number one.

Chord number two. And the chords are changing on the and. So this is 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4and 1 and 2 and 3 and thought. And so that second chord changes on an and so it feels like the rhythm's kind of hopping forward. Okay, so those are our first two chords, the D F sharp to that. That G sus 2 chord. Okay. The next two chords are going back to the D slash, F sharp. Okay. And then we're playing an E minor 7. And again. Could you. Could you play that bottom string? Absolutely. Again, I'm not introducing the pinky at this time because we're going to be doing some. Some picking a little bit later here, and it doesn't require those strings. So let's go over the timing of these four chords. Remember, we're changing that second chord on the and. All right, let's Count it in. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4.

And 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And.

So that's how we would start the song.

It'd be, oh, man.

Turn 98. He won the lottery, but he died the next day.

Now, as you listen to this verse, there's going to be a little picking riff that gets involved here. And what we're going to do is we're gonna play the D chord first, and then we're gonna. I like to pick up and hit that third string. So it's gonna be.

Hear that?

Oh.

And I hit the wrong string on that that time. You probably heard that it was a different note. You can do that, and it's okay. As long as you're playing the chord. It doesn't really matter what string you hit that. She is in the. If you listen to the record, I think they are catching that G string.

Okay, so that's the timing. And that note is coming in actually on a 16th note. It's 1. It's the ah before 2. So it has a very interesting timing to it. So it's like one.

Again. It almost feels hot a little bit. So here's that rhythm again.

Okay. That's the timing of it. Now the next set of chords. And it doesn't always happen on the next set of chords. If you listen, there's a little bit of improvisation, but the next one, we're going back to that D chord, and I'm going to catch the B string, the higher note.

Okay?

Okay. So if we put those together, it's going to be.

So again, you can really just do whatever. I mean, it's.

Now, you also probably heard I got a few extra notes in there sometimes. And this also happens particularly just before the chorus. We have an and four. And we're hitting. So we're going to be hitting the third string, the second string, and then the open D string. And as long as you're holding that G sus 2 chord or even the, you know, even if it's the D slash, F sharp, you're going to be hitting the right note. So it sound like this.

Okay. And then we go right into the next one. D to E and then E minor.

It's like rain.

So before we get into the chorus, let me play through a little bit of this verse so that you guys can kind of put it all together and hear how it's going to sound again. I'm not going for perfection here. So if I hit an off note every once in a while, as long as it's in time, that really all. That's really all that matters to me. Two ready and.

Hey.

Hey.

Well, then no, man.

1098, you won the lottery At a tie the next day It's a black fly and they're chardonnay It's a death row pardon. Two minutes too late. And isn't it ironic.

Don'T you think?

It's like rain.

So you can see when you sing and play this at the same time, you really just have to have the guitar on autopilot. And that's what I'm saying. If it's not perfect, don't worry that you. You hit the wrong note one time. Just keep going and keep flowing with the song and it'll sound great no matter what you do. So now we're in the chorus section, and this is where we come back to our strumming pattern that I already showed you. But we're doing something a little bit different here because the chords are splitting a measure. So when we have the intro.

Each chord was a full measure. Well, here we're actually changing the chords early. So we have down, up, down, up. And then we're switching the chord on that down. So we're switching the chord on the. And of two. So it's down, up, down, up, down. Okay, Just the second chord.

Down, up, down, up, down.

So it'll be.

So you can hear how that second chord has a hop to it. It's like we're driving forward. Okay? And the same thing on the F and the C chord.

Now that last D chord on the chorus is a full measure. So let me play through this chorus so that you guys can hear it. Fortunately, there's no picking. There's nothing really intricate about this chorus section. So let me play through it all the way for you guys to hear.

Isn't it ironic.

What you think it's.

On your wedding day It's a free ride.

When you are in a pain it's the good advice.

That you just.

Didn'T take and who would have fun?

Now we're back into the verse here, second verse. And you can either go right back into the picking, or we can bring things up a level, which I like to do when I'm performing by myself without a band, or. And we can add in some extra strumming. So let me just show you how to do this a few times so that you can hear it, and then we'll talk about it again. All right? And I'm just going to stick with that d to G sus 2 chord change. So we got.

Sukhiyar is alternating between doing for Anda and. And for Anda. So it would either be down, down, up, tagged to the end of this picking phrase, or down, down, down, up, tagged to the end of the picking phrase. So now for this second verse, Mr.

Play it safe Was afraid to fly he packed his suitcase and kissed his kids goodbye he waited his whole damn life.

There's a plane crash down if all. Well, isn't this nice? And isn't it ironic.

Don'T you think? It's like.

So you can see how adding a little bit of that strumming in just brings that second verse up a little bit compared to our first verse. Now, there's two more sections of the song that I want to show you before I do a little bit more of a playthrough for you guys. And that is the bridge section and the outro section. They're literally identical. We're going back to our intro, essentially. So we're going back to C major 7.

Well, life is a funny way Thinking up on you.

Life is a funny, funny way.

Right, So we're just going between C major 7, that D6 chord. All right, that's what we do for the bridge. And that's what we do for the outro. And you can end both of those on the.

I think it's a great way to end the bridge. You hear it in the song. But I also think it's a great way to end the song because the song doesn't really end. It kind of like fades out a little bit. So I hope you guys enjoyed this lesson. And if you're interested in learning another super fun 90s tune, then I highly recommend you go check out the four Non Blondes. What's up? Right over there. We're going to be doing some more cool strumming. See you guys in that lesson.