How To Play Guitar Walkdowns For Beginners

Hey, guitar enthusiast Lauren Bateman here. In this lesson video, we're going to go over walk downs and walk ups. What are they? How can you use them in your playing? That's what we're going to talk about here.

Alright, so the first example I'm going to show you is going to be a G to an F sharp to an E note. That is the walk down. Okay. And the walk up would be E. F sharp, G. So this is the top string, third fret, second fret open and then open second fret, third. Okay. That's our walk down and our walk up. Now we're going to have to make chords around these transitions. Because we're strumming, we're not bass players, we're guitar players. So we're going to try and combine some of this. So I would play a G chord.

Then the last chord is going to be in E minor. But we need to figure out how to get this F, F sharp note in between so we have a G chord. What I'm gonna have you do is lift up the second finger, move the first finger up to the top string second fret. Okay. That's our F sharp note. Right. Try and mute the string below. Again, we're not on this walk down. We're not really focusing on strumming the entire chord. I'm more gonna focus on the single note. Cause I don't think this chord sounds particularly very nice at all. So I would focus on playing a full G chord, then the F and then the E minor.

Okay. So I'm kind of just hitting the top string or top couple strings. But hopefully you're muting that A string in case you accidentally hit it, it doesn't ring through. So we got G, F sharp, E minor, E minor, F sharp, G, G, F sharp, E minor, E minor, F sharp, G. So I'm going to show you a couple examples, a couple little strumming patterns you can use this on. The first one's going to be more of like a waltz feel. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. So we're going to be doing down, down, up, down, up, 1, 2 and 3 and 1, 2 and 3 and 1st, 2 and 3 and 1, two and three and. And we're going to be going 1, 2 and 3 and 1th, 2 and 3 and 1,2 and 3 and 1, 2 and three and so it's G down, down, up, down, up to the F sharp. Down, down, up, down, up and then E minor. Down, down, up, down, up. So I know you're saying Lauren, well, you're strumming on that F sharp. How do we not strum the whole chord? Well, I'm ringing the bass note and then I'm strumming the lower strings. Notice how the bass note is ringing out?

1, 2 and 3 and 1.

Here are the bass. I'm going to do it again, the bass note, the walk down.

Here's the walk up.

Here, one more time.

Walk up.

So see, I'm emphasizing the bass because. Because it really makes that walk down and that walk up stand out. So let's talk about a song that's in 4, 4. Because there's lots of songs in 4, 4. A song maybe like Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton. So there's a part in Wonderful Tonight. This is the example I'm going to use here that goes C, D, G, E minor. And this song is in four, four time, meaning four beats. Okay? So you got 1, 2, 3, 4. So the strumming pattern I'm going to use is just 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3 and 4. And down, down, down, up, down, up. And let's see what we're going to do. So the progression is C.

To D.

Now I'm just going to do half of the strumming pattern on the G. Down, down, up. Here's the walk down to F sharp. Down, down, up. And then E minor. Down, down, down, up, down, up. So this is what it would sound like without the walk down. And you'll hear the difference now.

And there's nothing wrong with that. It sounds great. Here it is now with the walk down.

Hear the difference, hear the movement. So that's another great example that you guys can try throwing a walk down into your playing. Hey, guys, I hope you're enjoying this lesson so far. Make sure to subscribe to this channel. Turn your notifications on this way. YouTube will let you know when I release more videos just like this one. So now that you guys have had a couple examples of how to use this. G, E minor, sorry, G, F sharp, E minor transition, which is super popular, you're going to hear that lots and lots of this next one, a little less popular, but still very popular, is going to be going from C to B to A. And in the example I gave you earlier for Neil Young, Heart of Gold, he adds the G on the end. But ideally you would be going from a C chord to a C, B chord. So a C chord with a B note in the bass.

To an A minor.

Okay, so that takes care of our C, B, A.

Okay, that was me using that same strumming pattern from before. 1, 2 and 3 and 1, 2 and 3 and down, down, up, down, up down, down, up down, up, down, down, up, down, up. Here's the walk up A minor C slash B to C Walk down, read.

A.

App A B, C.

Now in Heart of Gold, he just does one strum per note. So it's kind of C, B, a G, thum, thump, thump, thumb. And in that, you know, on that C, B, I'm not focusing on playing the full chord. I'm just kind of getting that really more the bass note on that one.

Okay. And that's how you play that walk down in Heart of Gold. C, B, A minor G. You could just play the single notes and strum the G. That works too.

But in that song, that's how I would do it. Usually when I played live, I would strum the C chord. I would play the B note, strum the A minor chord, and then strum the G on the A end. So those are a couple of examples of walk downs and walk ups. Maybe go check out those songs that I mentioned earlier to practice this. If you guys like this video, make sure to give it a thumbs up. This way shows more of my videos to viewers just like you. YouTube is going to pop up a couple more videos over here. Go check those out. Hopefully there'll be something that interests you over there. And I hope to see you guys in another lesson video.