https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkovWYtA4Tc

Hey, guitar enthusiasts, I have a really great song here. It's called Ramblin man by the Allman Brothers. In this guitar lesson, I'm going to show you how to simply play this song. Fortunately, most of it is open chords. But before we get started, we need to put a capo on the first fret of our guitar, just like this, so that we can sound exactly like the song. So let's go over the chords we're going to be using. We're going to be using a C chord. We're going to be using a D chord. We have an E minor chord, and we have a G chord. Now, every once in a while, there is an F chord that comes into this song, which, unfortunately, it's a bar chord. But if you need an easier version that's a little bit more accessible, I'll give you two options here. So if you know your C chord, you can simply just lower your second finger and lower your third finger, and you'll have an F major 7 chord. Okay. It's going to sound a little bit bright and tinny because it doesn't have as many notes playing through as a full bar chord. The other option is just to remove the bar or if we go back to our C chord, leave the third finger in place, put the pinky right underneath it. Okay. Move your second finger down, keep your first finger in place, and we have a little bit of a warmer F major 7. So those are your three options. You have the F bar chord. Okay, we have F major 7 with 4 fingers, or we have F major 7 with 3 fingers, whichever is easiest for you. That's what you should use on this song. So first things first. Let's start with our intro. So our intro is going to be four measures. The first is going to be a G chord, and we're just going to strum and hold it for four count like this. 1, 2, 3, 4. Then we're going to play a D chord. 1, 2, 3, four. Then we got a C chord. And then on the very last measure, on the beats one and beat two, we're going to go C, G. Okay? So it's going to be one, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2. Okay, again. 1, 2, 3,4. 1, 2, 3, four. 1, 2, three, four. One, 2, 3, 4. One, 2. Again. 1, 2, 3, Four. 1, 2, 3, FOUR. 1, 2, 3, FIR. 1, 2. Without me counting. So that is going to handle the intro section of our song. Now we're. This song actually starts on a chorus versus a Verse, and we do have one F bar chord. Fortunately, it's only one chord in the entire chorus. So choose. Pick your poison there on the F chord. It is a gift G to an F. All right, so you might have to practice that transition just a little bit. So what are we going to do for strumming pattern here? So on this chorus, I like to. The easy version. Let's start with the easy version. If you're not good with syncopated rhythms. So this would be a rhythm that has a downbeat on every down count. 1, 2, 3, 4. So it would be 1, 2, 3, and 4. And 1, 2, 3 and 4. And down, down, down, up, down, up. Okay, so that will work perfectly fine for this course.

Lord, I was born a rambling man.

Okay, so that will work perfectly fine. What I like to do is I like to play a syncopated rhythm, which means we're missing one of those down strums. Okay. And our rhythm is going to be down, down, up, up, down, up. So we have down two up strums in a row. Down, down, up, up, down, up, down, down, up, up, down, up, down, down, up, up, down, up. Okay, so if I pick up the speed just a little bit, it's gonna be 1, 2, 1, 2. Here we go. Down, down, up, up. Now if I put that strumming pattern to this course, and you can always follow along with the notes on my website, it's going to sound something like this. One, two, one, two, Here we go.

Lord, I was born a rambling man Trying to make a living and doing the best I can and when it's time for leaving I hope you'll understand that I was born rambling man.

Now a little note. Some of you might have noticed, I play my E minor chord with my first and second fingers. A lot of people play with their second and third fingers and there's nothing wrong with that. But if you notice, when I was playing, the reason I like to use my first and second fingers, because when I went to go to that C chord, so I could just pivot right into it, meaning my second finger didn't even have to move. So I went from E minor to C. Okay. And if you're in my seven level guitar system, my beginner guitar course, I would show you a two finger E minor chord and a two finger C chord first that you could use just to build your finger deck sturdy. So I just want to make a note of that. So you were aware. Now the next part of this song is the verse section. So we could absolutely keep doing the same strumming pattern. It would totally work on this section.

My father was a gambler down in Georgia.

Okay. Or if you were doing the un syncopated rhythm, that would also work. Now when I'm playing and performing songs, because it's usually just me, I try to change things up a little bit just to keep things more exciting for the listener as well. So what we could do here, I'm going to show you a couple different strumming patterns. One's an easier one and the second one is a little bit more spiced up. If you want a challenge, because I love challenges. We're going to just do all down strums, eighth notes, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 N and you're going to notice I'm just going to be playing the dark part of the chord. So kind of like the thick strings, only the top three or four strings of each chord, it's to going. Going to give it a very dark sound. So it's going to sound like this 1 and 2 and 3m 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4m. So you can hear. I'm not. I'm not catching the treble, the bright sounding strings. So it's going to have a little bit of a darker sound than my chorus that we just came off. So it could be.

My father was a gambler down in Georgia we wound up on the wrong end of a gun I was born in the backseat of a Greyhound bus rolling down Highway 41.

All right, now that sounds really cool. Another option, I told you I was going to give you a spice. If you want a little bit of a challenge is you could do some palm muting on that verse. So palm muting is when you use the palm of your hand and you place it right in front of the bridge. If you're not familiar with palm muting, I do have a full lesson on how to do palm muting up here. I'll put that link so that you can go and reference that. But what we're doing is we're just putting this palmy flesh part right in front of the bridge of our guitar. Now, every guitar has a sweet spot, so you kind of got to find it. If you're hearing this, that's not palm muting. It's got to be the beefy part of the guitar. So you could do something this.

My father was a gambler down in Georgia Wound up on the wrong side of a gun.

So as you can see, you can lift your hand off the guitar to make it sing louder. And the palm muting makes it softer, and it kind of provides a really cool dynamic change for the listener. But again, if you just want to stick with the same strumming pattern you were using on the chorus, that's totally fine. Before I do a playthrough, I just want to talk about two more sections of the song. Very briefly, we have our solo section, which really isn't that different, other than we have the holds on the start. So it's going to be. We're just doing the G, D, C. Okay. And then we go right back into to strumming chords. All right, so nothing big there, the outro, it's just the. The chords change, and unfortunately, one of the chords is an F chord. I'm very, very sorry, but. Lord, I was born at Rambo Man. On the outro, we just have the.

G. Lord, I was born a rambling man Lord, I was born a rambling.

Man so it's basically G, F, G, G. You just keep doing that all the way out. Now, this song fades out. So whenever I have a song that fades out, I would just end the song on a nice G chord and it'll round it out nicely. So what I can do is I'm going to go from the intro, I'm going to play chorus, another verse, and another chorus just so we can work through the different parts of this song together. Now, if I'm going too fast, you can always use the settings cog to slow me down just a little bit so that you can practice playing along with me. One, two, one, two. Here we go.

Lord, I was born a rambling man Trying to make a living and doing the best I can and when it's time for leaving I hope you understand that I was born a ramblin man My father was a gambler down in Georgia he wound up on the wrong side of a gun I was born in the backseat of a Greyhound bus rolling down Highway 41 well, Lord, I was born a rambling man Trying to make a living and doing the best I can when it's time for leaving I hope you understand that I was born a rambling man.

Now, if you are an Allman Brothers fan and you're looking for another fun song challenge, I highly recommend you go out, check out my Melissa song lesson right over there, where I'll show you how to play through that song step by step.