If I Die Young Guitar Lesson

Hey, guitar enthusiasts, I have a great country song here and it's going to require a capo on the second fret. It's called if I Die Young by the Bam Perry. Great song. And probably a little bit more slightly towards the late beginner early intermediate because we do have a B minor chord. But I'm going to show you an easy fix. The other chords are very simple. We have an A chord, a D chord, and a G chord. Okay. And it's very common with that chord set a D and G for you to have a B minor chord. So it's a good sign to start practicing it because it only pops in every once in a while. So you can play the full B minor. But if you're not the greatest with bar chords yet, you could just remove the bar and put the first finger on the bottom string. Just play the bottom four strings. Still a B minor chord. It won't sound as nice as the full bar, but until you can get that sounding great, that'll work. Or you can use the three fingered B minor and just play the bottom three strings. So those are two E. Easier options if you're not the greatest with bar chords just yet.

So while we're on the subject of B minor, I want to talk about going from A into the B minor chord. Because this song, that's what we're doing. And a great practice would just be going from A B minor, a B minor, just practicing on getting that chord change down. Because it's very hard for a lot of people. So when I work on students, I make my A chord, my first, second and third fingers. I know some people might use things a little bit differently. What I would tell students do get your third finger in place and then slide into the chord. So I'm a watch my third finger.

See, I'm kind of like building the chord. As I'm sliding, my pinky comes in, my second finger comes down, and then my first finger. So if I'm playing this song, it's.

See how that, See how when I go into that B minor, that third finger comes right into place. And then I kind of slide into the fourth fret here with the second and third finger. Second finger comes down first finger. So just something I wanted you to be aware of when you're working on that bar chord transition. So the great thing about this song is that the majority of it is a repetitive pattern. At least on the chorus we have G, D, a B minor, that's okay. G, D, A, B minor and then G, D, double A so on this first chorus, all we're doing strumming. We're keeping it very simple. We're just doing one strum per chord. And if you need to follow along with my notes, you can always go to my website, laurenbateman.com and we're starting off with just one strum per chord.

If I die young Bury me in satin Lay me down on a bed of roses Take me to the river at dawn Send me away to the words of a love song and then.

Right here is where we would start strumming. Now there is another guitar. There's a lot of picking, there's some mandolin in this. We're just going to focus on the strumming pattern and doing something for acoustic guitar. So the strumming pattern we're going to be working on here is alternating between bass and treble, the low parts of A chord. So if I'm playing a G chord, the bottom one or two strings.

Versus strumming the entire higher chord. Okay. So you can hear the difference. So if I'm playing a D chord, it'll be the fourth string, okay. And if I'm playing the A chord, it'll be the fifth string or the fifth and fourth strings. Now the easy way to do this is it's going to be one and two and. And you're going to be doing bass, bass, strum, strum, bass bass, strum, strum. It'll sound like this.

Okay. And you'll notice that second strum, I'm not hitting it hard twice in a row. I'm not going.

Okay. That second strum is almost, almost what we would consider almost like a ghost note kind of. So it's there, but it's not as loud as that first down strum. So it'.

Okay, so you see, I'm doing a G chord for half a measure, I'm doing a D chord for half a measure and then I'm doing an A chord for a full measure. Alright? So if I take this from the top, this is what it's going to sound like. And then I'll show you the more intricate pattern that we'll use. So we've got if I die young.

Bury me in satin Lay me down on a bed of roses Sink me in the river.

Ready? Here it is.

Okay, now we're going to jump into our verses and you could continue with that simple pattern if you want to. Or you can use the pattern which I like, which is we're going to add a 16th note. Now this can be a little bit tricky if you're a beginner and you've never done a 16 note before because it's very fast. So before we do the strumming with the guitar, I'm going to put my pick down. I just want you to clap along with me. I find a lot of times when students have trouble with timing, if we just clap it out a little bit, we can come back to the guitar and it works out a little bit better. So this is the timing of it. It's going to be one and two.

And a, three and four and A. So it's one and two and a three and four and a half.

You can hear how quick that clap is on the end. So on the second beat and the fourth beat, we're adding a very quick 16th note.

So it's 1 and 2 and a 3 and 4 and a 1 and 2 and a. 3 and 4 and a.

Okay, so we've got that timing now. You got a feel for it. But we're going to bring it back over to the guitar. Now it's all down strums except for that 16th note. That's an upstrom. So.

So it's going to be 1 and 2 and A. 3 and 4 and A. Down, down, down, down, up, down, down, down, down, up.

One more time.

See as I. Nice flow to it. So if we take that into our verses, our verses very similar to just what we did in the chorus. G, D, A minor, B minor. Okay, do that twice and then we have G D double A twice. Alright. Very, very similar to just what we did in the chorus. So let's take that first.

Lord, make me a rainbow shining on.

My mother she know I'm safe with you and it's standing in my color zone Laughing always what you think it ought to be now Ain't even gray but you bur is a baby the sharp knife of a short life.

Well, I had just enough time.

And you'll notice on that chorus, that second A, I kind of just strummed it and let it ring out. I haven't listened to the song in a little bit, but sometimes it does ring out, sometimes it does play through, through. So so far we have the intro chorus, the verse, and then it kind of goes back and forth between verse and chorus. And then there's kind of a solo in a bridge section where we come back to the single strum. So when we get to this part.

So put on your best boys. And I wear my pearls what I.

Never did is done A penny for my thoughts oh no, I'd Sell them for a dollar there. What's so much more? After I'm a gonna re maybe you'll.

Hear the words I've been singing.

Funny how you dead people start listening.

And then we start picking up the strumming again. So what I'm going to do for you right now, and I apologize for my voice, it is early in the morning and I've only had one cup of coffee, so I'm doing the best with this one. So we've got. We're going to do the first chorus, I'll do a verse and then I will do a full chorus with the strumming so that we just can play through a couple of the parts together here. 1, 2, 3.

If I die young Bury me in satin Lay me down on a bed of roses Sink me in the river at dawn Send me away with the words of a love song Ready? Here we go. Uh oh uh oh.

Lord make me a rainbow I'll shine down on my.

Mother she'll know I'm safe with you and you stands under my color zone Life ain't always what you think it ought to be no ain't even gray but she buries a baby the sharp knife of a short life.

Had just enough time.

If I die young Bury me in satin Lay me down on a bed of roses.

If you really enjoyed the strumming for this song, then I highly recommend you go check out my Tennessee Whiskey lesson over there where we do more of this type of 16th note strumming.