Lauren Bateman teaches how to play Brandi Carlile's 'The Story' on guitar. You'll learn the chord shapes, a capo placement at the 2nd fret, picking patterns for the intro, and two strumming patterns: steady eighth notes for verses and faster 16th notes for the solo section.
All of these lines across my face Tell you the story of who I am so many stories of where I've been and how I got to where I am.
So I've had so many students reach out to me who said, lauren, I know you're a big Brandi Carlisle fan. Could you please do a Brandi Carlisle guitar lesson? And that's what we're going to do today. So let's talk about the chords we're going to be using for this song. Just want to make note. You guys can see my orange kaiser capo here at the second fret. So we're going to be playing all the chords relative to the capo. Now we're going to be using four chords. We're going to be using an A major chord. We're going to be using an E major chord, a D chord, and an F sharp minor. Now, I know what you guys are saying. Lauren, that's a bar chord. It is a bar chord if you don't know them yet. All you have to do to keep it simple is just move your A chord down to the bottom three strings. It's not gonna be the best sounding F sharp minor chord, but it'll work for the beginner level. So there's one more special chord we're gonna use. It's an ASUS4 chord. And from your A major chord, all we have to do is put our pinky down on the third fret at the second string. Now, this might be awkward for you guys if you've never done this before, so maybe practice thought, because we're going to be putting the pinky down and lifting it up. So we're going to leave the third finger down because this provides a really cool picking opportunity for the intro of this song. All right. But there's a little bit of a trick to it. So let's get into the lesson.
So this intro starts off with picking, and we're picking an A major chord.
Okay, so we're going strings 4, 4, 3, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, three. Here comes our ASUS 4. We strum down. Okay, so it's 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1, 2, 3, 4. And then you repeat that whole thing again. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 &. Okay, one more time without me talking over it.
And the picking pattern, I'm using that just so you know, I'm going.
Down, down, down, up, down, down, down, up.
Down. So once we get into the verse section, we're going to start strumming, and it has a really cool strumming pattern. We're going to be doing all eighth notes for this. It's going to be 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4, and 1 and 2, 2.
Now we're going to be doing something special with that. We're going to be accenting the 2 and the 4, because that's what Brandy does in the song. She kind of goes.
Okay. And we're doing this twice for every chord. So our chord progression is going to be. It's going to be a double, A, double E, F sharp minor twice, double D that. Then we have A, E, F sharp minor, D, A, E. And then at the end, we have a very fancy suspended chord that comes in. So let me play through, and I'll tell you guys what's going to happen at that part. So if we start on A, it's going to sound like this. It's going to be one and.
Two.
Story of who I am.
So many stories of where I've been.
And I got to where I am and.
2 and 3, and this story don't.
Mean anything you got no one to tell them to it's true.
I was made for.
You.
Ooh. So you heard the suspended chord came back in at the end there. So what was I doing?
So when the three, the third beat comes in, it's 1 and 2.
And 3 and 4 and 1, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4and.
1. So from the D chord on that last line, so two, tell them.
To. It's true.
If I was made for you 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1, 2. I climbed across the mountain tops.
And then it starts the whole thing all over again. So the energy of the song really comes up in this solo section. And when my band and I used to play this live, we had so much fun playing this song because you can really get the dynamics of your strumming up. And I'm going to show you what we're going to do here.
All right, so what am I doing? You can see we got a lot more strumming coming in here. We're building the dynamics. So if you're more at the beginner level, you might want to stick with that first strumming pattern. But if you're a little more late beginner to intermediate, this is a great way to push your strumming. So this solo starts out much the same way as our verses, and we're just going to be doing the simple.
It starts out as eighth notes, but once you get to the part where the Chords are only one measure. So it's one measure of A, one measure of E, one measure of F sharp minor, one measure of D. We're going to change our strumming pattern. And if you go and listen to Brandy play this, you're going to hear because the whole band, the whole dynamics of the song, the energy level comes way up at this point. So the strumming pattern we're going to be doing is 1 and 2 and A, 3 E and 4 and A. Okay, so this is a 16th note strumming pattern. Remember, 16 notes are count 1 E and A, 2 E and A, 3 E and A, 4 E and A. So we're going 1 and 2 and A, 3E and 4 and A. So now let's put in the downs and the ups. And we'll start with the first half. So it's going to be down, down, down, down, up. Okay, so it's one and two and up.
So four downs with an up on the end.
And that up is a little bit quicker because it's a 16th note.
So 1 and 2 and up. Okay, that's the four first half of the pattern.
The second half of the pattern is going to be down, up, down, down, down, up. 3E and 4 and again down, up, down, down, down, up. So the second half will sound like this.
Okay, if we put those together now. Okay, it's going to be 1 and 2 and A, 3 and 4 and A. Down, down, down, down, up, down, up, down, down, up.
And of course, this song, it's very fast, so once we pick up the speed, it's going to sound like this.
Now, before we switch into that strumming pattern, there's a little bit of a crescendo that's going to happen on the D chord before we switch over patterns. So at the end of that progression, there's a double D. Right, so we have 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. Well, the first D we're going to do normal 1 and 2 and 3 and 4and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4&.
Okay, so there's a little bit of a build.
So I do this by starting soft and also hitting less straight strings. And as my. As I get bigger, I hit more strings and I make the guitar get louder. We call this a crescendo, which is a great transition into this new strumming pattern. So this drumming pattern is going to continue all the way to the end until we get to our A, a sus part where we go back to eighth notes, and we have our.
So if I play the last 10 measures of the solo from that D chord with the crescendo, it would sound like this. I'll go a little bit slower so that you guys can try playing along with me. So we got the D4. We 1 and 2 and 3 and 4, and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and.
2, 3, 4. And then when we start the next verse, we just strum that A chord once Brandy sings over it, and then we get back into the regular strumming pattern. So the last thing I want to make a note of is the ending for this song where we're just going to strum an A chord for a measure, we're going to strum an E chord for a measure, and then we're going to end on the A chord. If you guys really love the strumming intricacies of this lesson, then you're going to love all the strumming work I do in my Melissa Etheridge. Com Come to My Window lesson. We do lots of dynamics, and you guys are going to love it. So I'll see you guys over in that lesson video.
