How To Play House Of The Rising Sun Guitar Lesson

So this is a very cool song by the Animals. It's called House of the Rising Sun. And you can either pick this or you can strum this song. Depends on your skill level. But we'll go over a couple different ways to play this song. This song is very repetitive in that I think it's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 times. It uses the same pattern, but that pattern does vary a lot. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna go over how to play the pattern. This song is in what we call six, eight times. So instead of counting to four, we're gonna count to six. It's kind of like a waltz, so you'll feel like you can sway with the music. But we're gonna count it as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1, 2, 3, 4th, 5, 6. 1, two, three, four, five, six. And that's how we're gonna count each chord. So each chord is six, six counts. So what you can do for the strumming pattern, I'm going to play an A minor chord here, which is in the song. You can either just play all downs. And that's what I would probably recommend to start. If you're just kind of learning would be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1, 2, 3, 4th, 5, 6. 1, two, three, four, five, six. 1, two, three, Four, five, six. 1, 2, 3, four, five, six. So you're just going to do six down strums. You can accent the first strum as you switch chords. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1, 2, 3, four, five, six. 1, 2, 3, Four, five, six. 1, two, three, four, five, six. That's what I would recommend, strumming wise for this song. It can make it a little bit more intricate, but that would be what I would do to keep it simple. The other thing you can do with this song is a great song for picking. You can either finger pick it or. Or you can use a pick. And I have a pick in my hand. So we're going to do the picking version. But at the end of this video, I will show you how you can finger pick this song as well. So what we're going to do is just go over the chord progression for this song. So the first four measures of music for this song are A minor, C, D and F. And after you do that, the next four are A minor, C, E and E. So those are the first eight measures. So the first measure is A minor, C, D and F. The second line is A minor, C and then double E. Then what we're going to do Is we're going to repeat the first line which are the first four measures, which is A minor, C, D, F. And then we're going to end with an A minor and an E. And then we get this kind of repetitive ending at the end of the song which is pretty much. Let me look at it here. So we've got A minor. So C, D, F. We've done that one before. And then it's A minor, E, A minor E. Now if you're saying Lauren, this is a lot to remember, you can always go to my website, which is laurenbateman.com and you can always go and look at the chord sheet that I have there. I do have a chord sheet for House of the Rising Sun. There should be a link below this video as well and how to get there. So that is the whole chord progression for this song. So yeah, it's a lot of chords to memorize that why it would be helpful to get that sheet. But we're gonna go over each one, each chord. So there's, let me see, there's five chords we're gonna use for this song. So let's go over all those chords first. So A minor, we're gonna keep the picking pattern simple. We're gonna keep it to six.

Two, three, four, five, six. One, two, three, four, five comma six, one.

So all I'm doing for this pattern, it's fairly repetitive. The only thing we're doing is we're changing the bass note or the first note we play on each chord. So A minor is a five string chord. So the picking pattern is going to be we're going to play the fifth string followed by the third string followed by the second string followed by the first string, second string, third string. So it's going to be.

5321-2353-2123-5321, 2, 35321, 2, 3. Well, the nice thing about the next chord is that it is C major and C major is also a five string chord. So the picking pattern is exactly the same. It's gonna be 5, 3, 2, 1 2, 353 2, 1, 2, 3. The only thing that's changed is the, the top note because on our C chord we have to play the third fret. And on the A minor chord the string is played open so it sounds a little bit different. So here's those two chords. A 5, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3C, which is 53212, 3.

Now the D chord is only four strings. So a four string chord with going to start at the fourth string because that is the lowest note in our chord. And we're going to go 4, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 1st, 2, 3. And then for our F chord and our E major chord, those are six string chords. We're going to go 6, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 6, 3, 2, 1st, 2, 3. And then for E, same thing. 6, 6, 3, 2, one, two, three, six, three, two, one, two, three. So if I pick through just the first two lines of music which uses all the chords, it would sound like this. So we have A minor.

C.

D.

F.

A minor.

C.

And E major.

So that is the picking for each of the chords that you'll need in this song. So what we're going to do is I'm going to play through a little bit of this song Once using some strumming and once using some picking. All right, so I'm going to start with the verses here and I'm going to strum first with the A minor. So we have. This is.

The house in New Orleans.

They call The Rising Sun 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1, 3, 4, 5,6.

The ruin of many a. Oh boy and God I know come 1.

C, 4, 5, 6, E. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. F2, 3, 4, 5, six. A minor, E, A minor and E. Now this next part I'm going to pick. So we got My mother was a tailor she's someone.

New Blue jeans.

My father was a gambling man.

Down in New Orleans.

C, D.

F.

A minor, E, A minor and E.

So that's how the two versions sound differently. The first one I did the strumming. The second one I did the picking. Now the intro for this song is kind of that ending that happens after each verse. So the intro is A minor, C, D, F, A minor, E, A minor E. So that is our intro and that comes at the end of every verse of this song. So just to repeat, if you have that chord chart in front of you, this is the entire patent pattern. So we have our intro, which I just told you. And then it's A minor, C, D, F. Awesome. A minor, C, E, E. A minor, C, D, F. And then A minor E. And then after that we start up with that intro again. A minor C, D, F, A minor E, A minor E. And after that the song just keeps repeating over and over again. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go to a close up version because some people would prefer to finger pick this. Some people find it easier.

I like finger picking things myself personally. But the picking, you get a little bit better of attack and a better ring on the the notes. So I'm going to go to a close up and show you how to do finger picking on this song as well. So here's my close up for the picking pattern if you would like to finger pick. So usually with my thumb I will alternate playing the bass strings and my first finger is going to be on my G string here. My second finger is going to own the B string and my third finger is going to own the lower E string. So if we stop started with our A minor chord we would be playing the bass note which is this A string. And we're going to go first finger or sorry, thumb first finger, second finger, third finger, second finger, first finger. So if I angle that for you, you'll see it's thumb 1, 2, 3 2, 1. Thumb 1, 2, 32 1. Same thing for the C chord. Thumb 1, 2, three two one. Thumb 1, 2, Three two one. And then when we get to the D chord, I'm going to play the fourth string with my thumb. So it's going to be 4, 3, 2. 1, 2, 3. Those are our strings. And my fingers are still going to be thumb 1, 2, 3 2, 1. Thumb 1, 2, 3 2,1, thumb.

And then for the E and the F chords my thumb is going to play this top string. So this would be E major.

And then F.

So the finger pattern is always going to be thumb 1, 2, 3. Can't do that. 3, 2, 1. That's always going to be the pattern. The thumb is just going to change. These three fingers never move. They always stay on the bottom three strings. They each own their own string and the thumb is just kind of alternating. So if I play the beginning, A minor, C.

D.

F.

A minor, C.

E.

So you see my bottom three fingers, they're not moving at all. It's my thumb that's moving to get the right bass note. One more note on picking this song, you might have heard in the intro when I was playing that I played a lot more notes or they weren't. So even as.

This. So we call that either a rake or, or some people will call it a sweep where you will very quickly instead of articulating each note.

We'Ll go.

And that's a little bit more like the technique they actually use in the song if you listen to it. So it's this raking technique of we're playing the bass note and then we're raking down the next three strings.

And then we're picking up on the first string, second string, and third string. So it's bass break.

Bass break.

Bass break.

I'll show you a close up of this technique as well. Here's a close up of that raking technique that we were talking about. So what I'm doing is if I play my A minor chord, I'm hitting. I'm hitting that A string and then I'm raking really quick.

And you'll notice my pick isn't. My pick is in flat like this. I've kind of got my pick angled a little bit so that. Or actually it's going to be angled down a little bit, not up. It's angled down so that I can glide over the string. So that's very important for this. So you want to pick the top string and then don't pull your pick out. Just let your pick go right down to the next string.

And then you want to stop on this bottom str. So you're going from the fifth string down.

So it's all a downward motion. And then you pick down, up, up.

And that is the ranking technique that you can use, which will give you the exact sound of the song.