IMPRESS YOUR FRIENDS! Step-By-Step Homeward Bound Guitar Lesson

I'm sitting in the railway station Got a ticket for my destination.

Hey, finger picking enthusiasts, I have a great song that someone requested, Homeward Bound by Simon and Garfunkel. And I'm going to show you multiple finger picking patterns, great ways to spice up this song. So let's get into the lesson right now.

Now we're going to be using variations on a G chord. But for the most part, the chords that are important to this song are going to be a G chord, an F chord, a C chord, an A minor chord and a D chord. And I'll show you those variations as we go through the finger picking sections. Let's start off with this intro, which is really cool, has this cool hammer on pull off thing. But I'm going to show you how to work through that step by step. So mostly we're going to be doing plucking here with our first and second fingers. And the thumb comes in every once in a while, but most of it is the first and second fingers. And we're going to start with putting those on the B string and the G string and we're going to play those open. So technically playing a G chord. But you'll notice I don't even have my hand on the fretboard. And that's the great thing about finger picking is sometimes you just play what you need. And if you don't have to play a full chord, you don't play the full chord. So we've got B and G string open twice. Okay, start simple. Then there's this really cool hammer on pull off thing. Hear that.

One more time. So what am I doing there? We have a hammer on and the key with hammer ons. There's a little trick to hammer ons here. The key is to go fast. I always tell people, imagine snapping your finger. If you go slow.

You can't get any sound. But if you go fast, you can get the sound. Same with hammer ons. There is strength to it, but there's also speed. So we're taking the first finger to the first string on the B string. First fret, B string here. And the second finger is going to the second fret on the G string. Okay, so we're going to playing the open strings and then we're hammering like a hammer, very fast. So you're getting two notes out of that and then right after that we're going to pull the fingers off the strings. And I always tell people the trick to pull offs is you're not just lifting the fingers away, you're actually, if you can see, I'm pulling down on the. I'm actually plucking the strings with my fretting here. Okay, so we've got open, open, hammer pull.

That's the timing.

Again.

So we're going to now move up to a bunch of different chords we're going to play. And we're starting with the middle two strings. So our first and second fingers have moved from the B and G string to the middle two, which is going to be the D and G. And second finger is going back to where it was. Okay. G string, second fret. And now we're add the third finger on the D strings. Technically like playing an F chord, but we're just taking two pieces of it. And we're going to pluck those with the first and second. Then we're going to lift up the third finger, move the second finger up one string. That's our C chord. So we're playing the middle two strings again. So this G string is ringing open. And then our next one, we're going to put this third finger like we're playing the C chord. I would get rid of the second finger and we're going to play the thumb with that. Fifth string is going to be played by the thumb. And then the second finger is going to get that open G string again. So those three chords are going to be F, C, C again. Okay. So it's.

So, so far we've got.

And then we're going right back to the C chord that we were just at. Second finger down, open G string and then ending on a G chord, both open strings. So all together it's going to sound like this.

Okay, a little more up to speed.

Now. When I was learning this and practicing, I went very, very slow and just got down the mechanics and then I picked up the speed. So you can do same exact thing. Get the mechanics, go very, very slow in the beginning, get your fingers moving and then pick up the speed. So verse number one, we're going to do a slightly simplified picking pattern, but we're going to do some variations. But let's start simple. In the beginning, the first part is all bass notes. Alright. And we're going to be going from the sixth string to the fourth string in the timing of 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and just back and forth. And fortunately for us, Simon and Garfunkel play this nice and slow. We're starting with the G chord, but we're needing the notes on the top string. So we're going to play a G note followed by an F sharp followed by an F. And then we're going to play an E minor, okay, because we will need this note on the E minor chord. So we're going to play the full E minor chord. But for the G, I'm just going to play the top string with my second finger, move down to the F sharp with my first F. With my first and then obviously the E minor chord. So that is going to sound like this. If we start on G, it's going.

To be, I'm sitting in the railway station Got a ticket for my destination.

Nice and simple, nice and easy. But what we're going to do now is we're going to spice things up just a little bit. Just a little bit. Remember this, because we're going to keep adding this little, this little spice in there. So we have an A minor chord that comes up next. And we're going to stick in the timing of the 1 and 2. And so this thumb is still doing that timing.

And two and three and four and.

And we're doing strings five and four. Five, four. Now what we're going to do is on the second beat, we're going to add in a little spice. So it's going to go one and two. E and A. Ooh, let me play that again. One and two.

E and very cool.

So what am I doing there? I'm playing what I call outside strings, inside strings. We're doing the thumb. And then the second finger is on that B string. And then we're playing the inside thumb. And then the first finger is on the inside G string.

So we have thumb, two, thumb one. So it's thumb, thumb, thumb, two, thumb, one.

Okay.

Okay, that's what we're doing now. You could just do the regular A minor after that. I'm going to show you how to do a walk down. But you could just go.

Because that's what we're going to do for the next chord. F is going to be.

And then G.

But I want to show you how to put in a walk down option if you want to add that. So it's going to be the A.

It's going to be thumb, thumb, thumb, two, thumb, one. And then we're going to play gum, thumb, thumb, thumb.

All right, so we're. Look what's happening here. My pinky is coming up to play a G note for this walk down. So it's bass, bass on the A minor. Reach up with your pinky to get that G note. Bass, bass. So if I play it all Together it'll sound like this. A minor.

Now we go to F and F. We're alternating the bass line between the sixth string and the fourth string.

Then G. Same thing. Sixth string and fourth string.

So we're just adding in that little bit of spice to make things fun. And then on the D chord, we're just going to do the.

Outside inside part. OK?

Thumb 2, thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1, thumb 2,. Thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1.

So just so you can hear, listen, so that you can put everything together and then you can practice with it. So we're going to start at the beginning with a G. I'm sitting in.

The railway station Got a ticket and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2e and a. Three and four and 1 and 2e and a 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 e and a 3 and 4 and 1e and a 2e and a 3e and a 4e and a.

So that leads us right into this chorus section where we have a nice 16th note strumming pattern we're going to be doing. It's going to be 1 and 2e.

And a, 3 and 4e and a, 1 and 2e and a, three and.

Four e. And it's going to sound like this.

And you can hear what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to accent the bass note on that first down strum and then I'm getting the rest of the strings on that second down strum.

So it's down, down, down, up, down, up, down, down, down, up, down, up, down, down.

Now for the chorus, it starts off by a measure of G, a measure of C, a measure of G, a measure of C. And then we get into split measures where it's G and F. So The G goes 1 and.

2, E and A. Then it's F, 3 and 4 E and A, back to G, 1 and 2 E and A. Then back to F, 3 and 4.

E and M. So it'll sound like this.

Homeward bound.

Showers.

Homeward bound.

Home where my thoughts escaping Home where my music's playing Home when my love lies waiting silently for me.

So at the end of this course, we're returning to finger picking and we're returning to that timing.

Of 1 and 2 and 3 and 4.

And it's a split measure of D and a split measure of G. But what I'm doing now is I'm doing bass pluck instead of just doing bass notes.

We're going to do bass pluck.

You can hear I'm getting a high note now and I like to add in. I'm going to make a note here. I'm using fingers 3 and 4 for my G and my E minor. It's more like an E minor 7. And the reason I'm doing that is because if you listen to the record, there is a second guitar part that comes in that starts playing some of these higher melody notes. So obviously we can't. We can't do that. We're trying to just play one guitar. So I like bringing in this. This higher melody note because I think it's a nice balance to this dark bass note. So what are we doing? First and second fingers are on the B and G strings and we're going bass pluck. So we're plucking up with these two fingers. Bass pluck, bass pluck. Same timing. And we're just following the same exact chord progression. G.

But now I'm playing more of the chord now. F sharp, F.

And then E minor.

Now what I'm going to do when we get to this a minor chord, I'm going to add in that spice I taught you in the beginning. So we're going to do bass pluck, bass pluck 2e and a bass pluck, walk down. Okay, do that again. So it's. So it's bass pluck two E&A bass pluck walk down.

F pluck two E&A bass pluck, bass.

Pluck, then g. Bass pluck 2e and a bass pluck, bass pluck. And then on this D chord, we're not finger picking this time. We're doing a crescendo. We're doing eighth notes, 1 and 2.

And 3 and 4. And.

The really nice lead in to the chorus. So you can see how we've taken this very simple pattern that we started the song with and now we're making it into something a little more interesting. And then we're adding in that spice.

I wanted to show you guys in this lesson how to evolve a finger picking pattern because it actually engages the listener more. It makes you sound like a much better guitar player. Finger picking is one of those things that just makes you sound great as a guitar player. Now if you guys want to play along with me, I do have a play along lesson for this song since it is so intricate. You guys can go check out and play along with me in that video right over there.