How to STRUM & FINGERPICK Danny's Song in 10 Minutes!

Even though we ain't got money we love so in love with you, honey Everything will bring a chain of love.

Hey, guitar enthusiasts. We're gonna be doing the guitar classic Danny song by Kenny Loggins. I'm going to show you how to finger pick the intro as well as how to strum along with the chorus. Let's get into it.

So let's talk about the chords we're going to be using for this song. We're going to be using our D chord, our C chord. We have an E major chord. We have a G chord. We also have a B minor bar chord. Okay. We have an A major chord and an ASUS 4. Now with the finger picking, I'm going to show you you could get away with an easy B minor chord that's not a bar. Okay. You just won't be playing that bottom string, but you'll be using the other four fingers. Now, the picking on this can be somewhat improvised at times. There's walk downs, there's different things that he's doing on a couple of the chords. So I'm going to give you a general framework that you can work from, and I'll also give you a couple different embellishments on the A chord and the B minor chord that you might want to try. But I'm going to show you a basic pattern that we're going to apply to all the chords, and then I'll show you how to embellish them a little bit. So. So the basis for all of these chords, we're going to be using the fingers thumb one and two. Okay. We're going to be alternating between thumb one, thumb two, thumb one, thumb two, thumb one, thumb two. So if we take our D chord here, we're going to be starting on the fourth string, and we're going to play that with our thumb. And then we're going to go to the first finger, which owns the second string, and our second finger, which owns the bottom E string. And then the thumb is going to be alternating between strings 4 and 3. Okay? So it's going to be thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb one, thumb two.

Okay. And that's basically all you're gonna play for the intro.

Okay, so the intro is just a D chord. Nothing really, really fancy. He's doing some other things, but this will work just fine. The next chord we're gonna encounter is gonna be a C major chord. So now we're gonna shift everything up just one string. So. So now the thumb is alternating between the fifth string and the fourth string, our first finger is on the third string. Our second finger is now on the B string. Okay? So it's going to be the same pattern. Thumb one, thumb two, thumb one, thumb two. But now we're on strings five, three, four, two. Okay?

So, so next will be the B minor chord. And since we're not going to be playing this high E string, we're going to play it the same way we played the C string. You don't have to worry about barring this chord. So that's nice for those of you who are still learning about bar chords. So we're going to do the same thing. Thumb one, thumb two.

And since our A chord is also a five string chord, it's the same thing, okay? Same strings, same everything. Okay. And when I show you the embellishment on the asus four chords, you'll see it's the same exact pattern too. The last one I want to talk about is the E chord, okay. Because that's the last chord we're going to finger pick. That is a six string chord. Now these two fingers, the first and second finger, they're not going to move. They're going to stay put. The thumb is, instead of alternating between 5 and 4, it's going to alternate between 6 and 4. So it'll sound like this.

So it's 6, 3, 4, 2, 6, 3, 4, 4, 2.

So if I were to play through this first verse without any embellishments, and I'll go slow for you guys or it will go a little bit slower.

People smile and tell me I'm the lucky one.

We've just begun.

Think I'm gonna have some.

You will be like she and me as free as a dove.

Conceived in love.

Sun is gonna shine above.

Now you probably heard me make a little. Little mix up in there. My brain always goes to Travis picking. You could use Travis picking on this song. But in terms of what I'm going to show you, on some of these embellishments, the rhythm doesn't work quite as well. But that will show you that for the entire all the verses here and be perfectly fine. I like to throw little embellishments in, particularly over the A chord. But I'm going to show you how to do one over A and over B. So let's start with this A chord first. We're going to do the A chord regular.

Then we're going to go to an asus chord. We're going to put our pinky down on the third string of that second fret so that's going to give us an ASUS4 chord.

Okay, so now we have a different note coming in. So the first time it sounded like this.

That was the A chord. Now Ace S4.

Now I'm gonna let that note ring. So now I'm gonna leave this pinky down for now the next time through. Because remember, we're playing this too many fingers. We're playing this A chord for two measures. So instead of going to that second string, I'm going to reach my second finger down and I'm going to grab this high E string. Watch what's going to happen. It's going to be thumb one, thumb two. Now, you could just play it with the third finger, but my muscle memory seems to want to grab it with the second finger. All right, so first one we have is a regular A.

Next one is ASUS 4.

Next one is we're hitting the high E. So kind of back to an A major chord and then lift up the pinky.

Because we're going back to the A. So here it is all together.

So that's the embellishment that you can use over the A chord. I really like using that. And if you listen to the recording, you can hear those notes coming through. So that's why I wanted to show you that one in particular. But the next one is going to be for a B chord. And we can do some movement on this as well. So what you could do on this B minor chord, since we're playing it for two measures, much like the A chord is, you could just play it the embellishment on the first one or the second one, whichever you choose.

Okay. And you can just see. And if you go and listen to the recording, he's grabbing notes here and there. So just listen to the recording and play around with this stuff. But I just wanted to show you guys a couple of quick embellishments. So I'm going to do a little bit of a run through now with some of those embellishments so that you guys can hear how it adds just a little bit more to the playing by adding in a couple of those high notes. And then I'm going to show you what we're going to do on the chorus of the song for strumming. All right, so let's start with the intro. We'll go nice and slow here, or slower than the full song, but here we go. So we start on D. 1, 2, ready?

And people smile and tell me I'm.

The lucky one.

We just begun.

Think.

I'M gonna have the fun.

He will be like she and me as free.

As a dove.

Conceived in love.

Son is gon shine above.

And even though we ain't got money.

All right, so now that you have a feel for the verse, let's talk about what we're going to do on the chorus. And we're finger picking here. So we're going to be strumming down with our thumb and up with our index finger. Okay. And the strumming pattern we're going to be using is 1, 2, 3 and 4. And 1, 2, 3 and 4. And down, down, down, up, down, up. Now there are two guitars that play over this part, so if you listen to the recording, you'll still hear some finger picking. And you're more than welcome to finger pick this chorus. But when I'm playing by myself, I like to try and throw in some dynamics. So let's see what we're going to do here. So if you heard me playing, I'm kind of catching just the bass notes on that first strum and then I'm catching the treble notes on the second strum.

Okay. So I'm hitting the low notes on the first down strum and the high notes on the top strum. It just adds a little bit more dynamics and then I'm just strumming regular. Down, up, down, up. Okay, so if I took this chorus, it would sound like this. It would be.

Even though we ain't got money I'm so in love with you honey and everything you bring the chain of love.

And in the morning when I rise, you bring a tear of joy to my eyes and tell me everything's gonna be alright.

And then you would jump right back in to your finger picking. If you enjoyed this lesson in the combination of finger picking and strumming, then I highly recommend you go check out my Simon and Garfunkel homeward bound lesson right over there where I show you another really cool finger picking pattern.