Margaritaville Guitar Lesson with Strumming & Intro for Beginners!

Hey, guitar enthusiasts. I have a very easy. That's not four. Sorry. I have a very easy four chord song by Jimmy Buffay here. Jimmy Buffett. We have a D chord, an A chord, a G chord, and a D7 chord. And the reason I made that mistake and said three is because if you're not very familiar with a D7 chord, you can just stay on the D chord. So you could easily turn this into a three chord song if you wanted to. So again, we have a D chord, A chord, a G major chord, and then a D7 chord, which kind of has that twangy, funky blues sound. So you don't have to use the D7, but just understand if you use the regular D chord, it's not going to sound exactly like the song, but it'll still work perfectly fine.

So before I get into the strumming patterns and a playthrough for this song, I want to go over the fun little intro section, which just requires a couple little chord shapes on the bottom strings. It's really fun and students ask me about it all the time. So I figured I'd show it to you here. So we're going to start off on the fifth fret with our first finger, and I just want to show you the guide. We're going to use our first finger as a guide. And I'm going to just play the notes on the bottom string first. So it's going to be 5, 5, 5 and then 3, 5. So we get 5, 5, 5, 3, 5, 5, 5, 5, 3rd, 3, 5. And then we're going to hop up to 7, 7, 7, 7, 5, 3 and then 2. So I want you to use the first finger as a guide. So let me just play that through.

Already. Sounds like the intro, but we're going to spice it up just a little bit more. But I wanted you to have that guide. I want you to use your first finger as the guide. So we're going to start with our first finger on the fifth fret and then our third finger. We're kind of doing a reverse power chord here. Our third finger is going to come up to the seventh fret on the B string. Now I have a lot of older students who are in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. That's why I specialize in teaching. And for some of them with their arthritis, using the third finger to do this kind of shape is too much. So if you need to use your pinky, totally fine. If that's more comfortable for you, go for it. I'm going to use my Third finger. Okay, and we're going to use this shape and we're just going to use the first finger as a guide. Alright, so we've got.

Okay, now we're going to slide our first finger to the third fret. This third finger is going to come with us. So now we're on three and five. So it's going to be.

Then we're going to repeat that.

Okay, now first finger up to seven. And this time we're going to use our second finger to grab the a th fret on the B string.

Now back to V7, 3, 5. And then the last one is a D chord. Alright, so if I go through that whole thing again, we've got fifth fret.

Okay.

All right, one more time and then I'll do it a little bit more up to speed. So Here we go. Fifth fret string, starting point. So we're going 5, 5, 5, 3, 5, 5, 5, 5, 3,. Ready? 1, 2, here we go.

Okay, now a little bit more up to full speed. Here we go. One, two. Ready? And.

So if you want to that pause the video now go back, re. Watch it again. Rewind it. Play along with me. But if you're ready to get into the strumming, let's keep going. Now, the great thing about this song for these verses is we really hang out on these chords for a long time, which is why I really like this song for beginners. Because there's not really a lot of chord changes in these verses. When we kind of get to the refrain part where he goes waiting, wasting away again in Margaritaville, we start getting a lot more chord changes. But let's just talk about the first part of the song. So we have a D chord and we're going to play that for six measures. Then we have an A chord and we're going to play that for eight measures. And then we end on a D chord and then a D7. Okay? So the D7, it's there to act as a nice transition into the refrain. But again, if you can't play the D7 chord yet, you're an absolute beginner and you haven't learned that chord yet. No problem. Just hang out on the D chord. It's still going to work. Just understand, like I said earlier, it's not going to sound exactly like the song. Now, I always tell students with this verse, the key is the lyrics. So we're going to be hanging out on this D chord, you know?

Okay. And then we got nibble it on sponge cake. The key lyric is Oil. Okay, we're going to change to an A chord. You don't have to count how many measures. Okay, listen for the word oil. Because when he says, you know those tourists covered in oil, that's when we change to the A chord. And then the next lyric to listen to is boil, we change back to D. So instead of having to be like, okay, am I on the sixth measure of A? The second measure of oh, shoot, did I miss a measure? Think of the lyrics. So the first lyric we're listening for is oil and then boil. We're going back to the D chord. Alright, so let's talk about the strumming pattern we're going to use for this very, very simple strumming pattern.

It's going to be 1, 2, 3 and 4 and 1, 2, 3 and 4and 1, 2, 3 and 4&.

Okay, so it's down, down, down, up, down, up, down, down, down, up, down, up.

Now if you're someone who knows that, really fun. There's a syncopated pattern. I consider this a little bit more late beginner, early intermediate. It's the down, down, up, up, down.

Up, down, down, up, up, down, up.

If you know that strumming pattern, that'll work great on this song too. I'm going to use the easier strumming pattern. It's an easier strumming pattern because we have a down strum on every beat. So it's a little bit easier for beginners to keep time. So I'm going to use that strumming pattern. So let's play through this first verse and then I'm going to talk about what's happening in the refrain. But again, remember, listen for oil to switch to A and boil the switch back to D. So let's do a little intro, a couple measures of D and then we'll start talking about sponge cake. Ready? 1, 2, ready M.

Nibbling on sponge.

Cake.

Watching the sun bake.

All of.

Those tourists covered with oil.

Strumming my six string.

All my front porch swing.

Smell those shrimp they're beginning to boil.

So see, it's much easier when you just think about the lyrics. I changed the strumming a little bit there on, on the end I got excited about jumping into the refrain. But listen for oil, listen for boiling. In the next verse, it's the same too. On the next verse it's tattoo and clue. And then on the verse after that it's home. And then on those are the key lyrics and those will tell you when you need to switch up the chords. So let's take a look at the refrain. We have a lot more. A lot more movement here. We also have a little bit of a timing thing in the middle. So let's talk about that right now. So strumming pattern is not going to change.

We've got G wasting away again in Margaritaville.

Searching for my lost shake of salt.

Now here's going to be the timing change.

People claim that there's a Goldman to blame.

All right, so there's the timing change. It's not very hard again, because it lines up with the lyrics. Exactly. That's right. Again, I love this song. This is a great song for timing lyrics with chords. So we've got here.

Some people claim that there's a woman.

So wow. Goes to d W. And then man.

Man, I don't know, don't know what's wrong with me today it's this head cold I'm still getting over.

So we have woman to blame.

So one strum on. Woof. And then one strum on, ma'. Am.

Okay.

Some people claim that there's a woman to blame But I.

Nobody'S fault.

All right, so I'm going to play the last verse in the very last refrain because there's a little bit of a loop on this last refrain. So I want you guys to hear that. Now the key lyrics are home. We're going to switch to a chord and then on we're going to switch to the D chord. All right, so let's start at the top. We're going to hang on to that D chord for a little bit until we get to the word home. One, two, one, two. Ready?

M. I blew out my flip flop.

I stepped on a pop top.

Cut.

My head and had to cruise home.

Cut.

Cruising the blender.

And soon it will render.

That frozen concoction that else he hold on.

Wasting away again in Margaritaville.

Searching for my lost shaker of salt.

Some people claim that there's a woman someone to blame But I know.

It'S.

Nobody'S fault here's the change.

And some people claim there's a woman to blame and I know.

It'S my own downfall.

If you enjoyed this song and are looking for another very simple three chord song with a fun intro, check out my lesson on Simpleman by Lynyrd Skynyrd. See you guys right over there.