A Lauren Bateman YouTube guitar lesson teaching the strumming patterns for 'Horse with No Name.' The lesson uses only two chords (E minor and a D6/9 variant) and emphasizes converting straight eighth-note strumming into a swung/shuffle feel. Bateman demonstrates a two-measure pattern: Em played as 'down, down, up' within the shuffle and the D6/9 missing the down on beat 2 (creating two up-strums in a row), then adds accents on beats 2 and 4 of the Em to match the recording.
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Hey, guitar enthusiast Lauren Bateman here. In this lesson, we're going to be going over the next step to Horse with no Name. Let's get into the lesson video.
So this is the first song I teach my students in my seven level guitar system. I teach them the easy version. So if you want the easier version, I'll put the lesson link up here. But this I'm going to go into more of the real strumming that, that they do in the actual song. Because that other lesson, I just give you a really, really simple way to get you started. But I went back and I listened to the song and the strumming is a little bit more intricate than you might think. So let's talk about the chords we're going to be using. We're just going to be using two chords in, in this song version. So we have an E minor chord. Very nice. And we have this kind of like D69. It's, it's, it's a weird chord. But basically what we're doing is we're just taking our E minor chord and we're moving the first finger up one, the second finger, two chords. That's all we're gonna use. And if you look at some other versions, you know, there's like an E minor nine and another. We're just gonna stick with the. We're gonna stick with just the two chords. I think it makes it simple enough. Okay, so those are the chords we're gonna be using. And now let's talk about the strumming options we have for this song. So in the beginner video, I just had you doing, you know, four strums per chord, which sounds fine, but it doesn't really sound like the actual song.
Right.
The song kind of like a.
Right.
So what is going on here with this rhythm? So instead of a straight beat, this song actually has more of a swing to it. So instead of it just being straight 8th notes, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4, and it's 1, a 2.
A 3, a 4, a 1, a 2, a three, a four.
It has more of a swing to it. Kind of like a shuffle that we would use for like a blues song. So this is what a straight beat would sound like, using eighth notes. One and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and 1 and very straight. Right now here's the shuffle. Ready?
Already sounding more like the song already. That's not the full rhythm. They're doing some other different things. But I just want you to get the feel of this shuffle first, because most people, they play the song and it's one and two and they're like, man, it doesn't really sound like the song. And that's because this song has a shuffle.
So it's 1, a 2, a 3, a 4, a 1, a 2, a 3, a 4. Down, up, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down.
Okay, here it is, Listen.
So I just want you to get familiar with that shuffle pattern and then switching between the chords. So start with your E minor 1.
Now for some people it can be hard getting off of that straight time and onto this shuffle pattern. There's kind of like a short long when you think about it. So we have. So it start with, starts with the.
Long, long, short, long, short, long, short, long, short, long, short long, short long, short long, short long, short, long, short long.
All right, so that is the feel of the shuffle. That is going to be the foundation for the rhythm we're going to use. So I went and listened to the actual recording of this and this is what I thought I heard them playing. Hey guys, hope you're enjoying this lesson video. Don't forget to to subscribe to the channel and turn the notifications on this way. YouTube will let you know when I release new videos just like this one. So we're just going to be leaving out a couple of strums. It's actually a two measure strumming pattern. We're going to be doing one strum over the E minor and a different strum over that D69 chord. So the E minor chord is pretty simple. It's going to be down, down, up.
Down, up, down, up.
It's going to be 1, 2. There's no up and down after the first down. So it's not 1, A 2, it's.
1, 2, A 3, A 4, A.
That's going to be the E minor.
1, 2, A 3, a 4, A. Down, down, up, down, up, down, up.
Not too hard, right? One more time.
E minor 1, 2, A3, A4, A. Down, down, up, down, up, down, up.
All right, so that's what we're going to do for the E minor. Then we're going to switch to this D69 and we're going to go one and then we're going to miss the two. So there's not going to be a down strum after this. We're actually going to do a second up strum in the room. Up strum in a row.
So it's going to be 1A, a 3A 4Up.
Okay, did you get that? Let's do it again. So it's going to be down, up.
Up, down, up, down, up, down, up.
I think that's the full one.
So one a, a three a four A. Okay, one a, a three a four A.
All right, so if I put those together, it's going to sound like this.
All right, 1, 2A 3A 4A, 1A, A 3A 4A.
Now that sounds a lot more like the song. And when I went and listened to that intro, you can go and you can slow it down. It's really good because you can hear the acoustic guitar very well.
You'll hear that there's this kind of.
Hopping going on and that's where we miss that second beat, that down strum over that D69. So once again, the E minor chord.
Is going to be 1, 2a 3a 4a.
And then the D6, 9 is going.
To be 1a, 2a 3a 4a.
So no down strum on that.
2 1, 2a 3a 4A. 1a, a 3a 4A. 1, 2a 3a 4 a 1A, a 3a 4A.
All right, so hopefully you can go listen to the song and that's what the rhythm's gonna be. All right, so once you get that section down, we're gonna move on to part three, which is we're gonna add an accent to the rhythm. So if you really listen to this rhythm, it has movement to it. Alright. So we're really developing the rhythm on this song here. So we've got.
So I'm accenting the 2 and the 4 on that E minor chord. So it's gonna be down 2, right down 2.
So I'm really making sure on those down strums that I'm getting the full E minor chord. On the other strums, I'm just kind of strumming the top half of the chord.
Hear how that 2 and 4 sound a little bit different.
That's just on the E minor.
Because then we're going to switch on the D, that D 6, 9. Remember, we don't hit the down strum on the 2.
If you want to accent on the 4, you probably could, but I. I don't think I hear it that much. I definitely hear it more on the E minor. So this is what the full strumming pattern would sound like.
Hear it.
2, 4.
Again.
1, 2, 3, 4.
Again.
Last time.
And there you go.
That is the fully developed strumming pattern for a very, very simple song Horse with no Name. Hope you guys enjoyed the lesson. Don't forget to give me a thumbs up.
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