Night Moves Guitar Lesson with Percussive Strumming!

Hey, guitar enthusiast Lauren Bateman here. We're going to be doing a phenomenal song by Bob Seger called Night Moves. Now in this guitar lesson we're going to be going over a variety of different strumming patterns. In particular a hopping rhythm. So if you don't know what that is, I'm going to show you in this lesson. Let's get into it. Now there's a variety of chords in this song, one of those being an F chord. But I watched Barb Seger play this live and he seems to use an F major 7 chord versus an F bar chord. So we won't have to worry about that. The only bar chord you're going to have to deal with is going to be B minor which really only comes in on the very ending outro of this song. The majority of this song is going to be going between G, F and C on the verses and then in the chorus it's going to be going between E minor, D and C. Okay, so if you know those chords you're going to be able to play the majority of this song. So let's start off with our intro and verse strumming which has a little bit of syncopation to it, a little bit of hopping and a little bit of percussion to it. But we're going to break it down step by step and build upon the elements. So the first thing, let's play a G chord. Okay, so we have our nice G chord going. The pattern we're going to use, we're going to use an eighth note pattern.

It's going to be 1, 2 and.

3, 4 and alright, that's what we're going to start with. It's going to be 1, 2 and 3, 4 and alright and that's going.

To be played down, down, up, down, down, up.

So that's the first half of the strumming pattern. So the strumming pattern is a two measure strumming pattern. So that's the first measure. It's just going to be 1, 2.

And 3, 4 and 12 and 3, 4 and.

Okay, so the first measure is relatively easy. It' second measure, all the syncopation comes in and that means we're going to be doing multiple up strums in a row. We will also be changing chords. We're not going to throw that in just yet. I just want you to get the rhythm. So here's the second measure, it starts the same 1, 2 and but there's no down on 3.

So it's going to be 1, 2 and, and, and so all ups, down.

Down, up, up, up, again, down, down, up, up, up.

Alright, so if you put that together with the first 1, 1, 2 and.

3, 4 and 1, 2 and, and.

And down, down, up, down, down, up, down.

Okay, so that is going to be the basis. That's the starting point for this rhythm. And we are going to add some percussion into this when you are ready. But if you've never done multiple up strums in a row, that in itself could be tricky enough. So you might want to pause the video and just work through that on just one chord. Don't start changing chords yet until you understand the strumming pattern. So once you get that down, we are going to be shifting between F and C. Then C and F to G we're going to be doing this shifting thing and I'll explain that. So on the first pattern we're starting with the G chord, okay. And then we're going to go to F major 7 and C on the very end of that strumming pattern. So those last two ups, the first up strum is going to be an F and the very last up is going to be a C. Okay? So it's going to be 1, 2.

And 3, 4 and 1, 2 and, and, and hear that?

Now it's starting to sound like Night Moves. Here we go.

Down, down, up, down, down, up, down.

Down, up, up, up. Okay, and that's the great thing about using the F major 7 here. Super simple transition into that C chord, okay? So you have F major 7. Just move that second finger up and you got your C chord. Okay? So very, very nice sounding chord. Let's try that one more time and I'm going to show you how to go from C back into G. We're going to do the opposite. Okay, but first one more time on the G. So we got down, down.

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

There it is. All right, so now we're on our C chord. Okay. Which is the start of the next measure. We're going to do the same thing.

Down, down, up, down, down, up, down, down, up, up.

So back to F up on G. Okay, so this time we're going F to G. And then we start back on.

Sam.

Okay, now you hear it. So now it's starting to sound like Mike moves at a slow tempo. Okay, At a slow tempo. And then if you picked it up a little bit it would sound like this.

1, 2, 3, 4.

Okay? So that's really when you start getting it cooking and you, and you Saw even. I kind of hesitated on some of those chord changes because I don't have the progression memorized. I learned this enough to teach it. So I won't be singing and playing this because of all the syncopation. I haven't put enough practice into this yet for me to even be able to sing and play this at the same time. But I wanted to show you the rhythm. So that is our intro, that is our verse. Okay. Now, if you really want to sound like Bob Seger, we can add a little percussion into this rhythm, which is we're going to kind of do this little muted strum on 2 and 4. So.

Kind of curates that percussive, almost like a backbeat, as if you have a drum. So I'm not doing anything mechanically different. The strumming pattern is exactly the same.

1, 2, and 3, 4, M1, 2 and. And M1.

All we're doing is replacing the twos and fours with hits. And what I'm doing is I'm just strumming. I call it the karate chop. I'm just karate chopping my guitar. I'm strumming down. So I am strumming the strings, but I'm muting the strings with the palm of my strumming hand. Okay? So it's.

Okay.

One, two, one, two, one, two, and one, two.

Okay. So that's what we're doing. It's just a little bit of a muting pattern. So if you want to add that into the mix, you can. If you want to keep it simpler, don't throw the percussion yet in until you get the chord changes down. And then you can always make it more difficult. That's what I always tell my students. If you don't know me, my name is Lauren Bateman, and I try to help make the guitar make sense. And this is what we do. We break things down step by step so that you can understand how to start simply and make things harder and build from there. So that is the intro in the verse. On the end of the verse, we're going to hold our C chord. Okay. So we're not going to do any changes. And all these notes are on my website. You can go to laurenbateman.com and check that out. But on the last one, instead of doing the changes on the chords, the F, the C, we're going to do C chord.

I'm just doing 3, 4 on the C chord.

So 1, 2 and 3, 4, and 1, 2 and 3, 4.

And then we're going to switch over into our chorus. Which has its own rhythm in its own syncopation. So let's talk about that one next. So we have E minor.

Okay.

We get that beautiful sounding E minor coming in. And it's going to be. The strumming pattern is going to be.

1, 2, 3 and 4. And 1, 2, 3 and 4.

And down, down, down, up, down, up, down, down, down, up, down, up.

Nice, even kiltered strumming pattern. The only caveat is it's Bob Seger's night moves and he wants to do these hopping rhythms. So we're going to be changing to a D on the and after three and a C on the and after four. So it's going to sound like this.

1, 2, 3, and 4.

And hear that again.

1, 2, 3, and four.

And now these chord changes are very quick, so I want to make a note. Those down strums, particularly that down between the D and the C. I'm probably just playing open strings because my hand is literally in the air making the chord change. So people don't realize that when you're strumming and you're trying to do these fast changes, you don't always have to leave the fingers down. My fingers are probably mid ear getting ready to jump to that C chord on that fourth beat. So it's potentially that I'm just playing the guitar like this, but I play the chord fast enough that it doesn't sound bad. So Here we go. 1, 2, 3, and 4. M.

And then you saw on the C chord what I did. Same thing, just in reverse.

So it's 1, 2, 3, and to.

The D chord, 4 and to the E minor. Okay, so E minor first.

And I'm playing something different, but you get the feel of that. It's a hopping rhythm. We're changing on the up strum versus the down strum. Let's take that one more time so I can play it nicely for you. So it's 1, 1, 2, here we go.

Okay. And you can see I'm reading my notes because I don't have this memorized. So I'm working on this just like you. And again, at the end of the chorus, we have a full measure of a C chord. So you could just stay on that rhythm.

And then it jumps right back into the first one.

Okay, so it's that same rhythm hopping in and out of the chorus in the verse. And there's one more section where there is a lot of change, and that is our little breakdown section. All right, so interlude. We're going to hold E minor For a full measure.

1, 2.

And then we're going to do 3 and 4. And. And then end on a G. So.

It'S 1, 2, 3, 4.

1, 2, 3 and 4.

And 1, 2, 3, 4.

1, 2, 3, 4 dot so there's two GS. E minor, 1, 2, 3, 4.

1, 2, 3 and 4.

And 1, 2, 3, four. 1, 2, 3, 4 Dot Now, I.

Have here two strums. You might want to listen to the record. You might strum it and just hold it out. But you can do whatever you choose there. Now, this next section, the bridge section, we are playing each chord twice. We have a C major 7 chord.

Which is just a C chord without your first finger. If you just want to play C, that also works fine. We have a G chord and we also have F. Okay, so the strumming.

On this is 1, 2 and 3 and 4. And 1, 2 and 3 and 4. And 1, 2 and 3 and four.

And down, down, up, down, up, down, up.

And if you want to add a little percussive element, you can do that. Slap on the two.

Okay, so that's also an option there. Now, all these chords, we're just holding them for two measures. So we start with C major 7.

The back to c major 7.

Then he plays this G chord, and it holds for a very long time. Okay, I think it's about four measures. And then this part, you know, I woke up last night to the sound of thunder. He's just playing chords. You know, he's strumming chords and then just singing over. So basically just strumming and holding chords throughout this entire bridge section. And then we jump right back into our verse rhythm for following that. And then we have the outro again where he's playing different chords. We have a key change here. So we have E minor, B minor, A minor, C, G. Okay. And you could just use that same. Any one of the other rhythms that we played before. Okay, you could use the one that we played on. On the interlud.

If you enjoyed all of the rhythm in this, especially the percussive elements, I'd highly recommend that you go check out my video right over there, where I show you how to make your rhythm sound so much cooler by adding in more percussive elements to your playing.