Lauren Bateman teaches the CCR classic in 10 minutes. Learn the four-measure intro pattern, then the verse strum on D with muted hits on beats 2 and 4. She plays it slow, medium, and full speed so you can follow along.
If you are a CCR fan, then I have a great song here. Proud Mary that we're gonna go over doesn't have a ton of chords. We've got an A chord, we've got a C chord, we've got a D chord, we have a B minor chord. So that's a bar chord as well as an F bar chord. So let's put this a little bit more into the intermediate realm. Not an absolute beginner song, but don't worry if you are a beginner. I have a full playlist of CCR songs. You guys can go over there and find one that is the beginner level. But if you're interested in Lear song, let's get right into it.
So the first thing we're going to dive into is the intro for this song. There's a lot of movement, but we're going to break it down step by step because that's what I do on this channel. Make the guitar make sense. We'll break things down, make it easier. Let me play through it first so that you guys know what we're going to do and then we're going to talk about how we play it.
All right, so a lot of strumming, a lot of chords on this intro. Fortunately, this song, it's not like the. The Ike and Tina Turner version where it like goes really fast towards the end. Nice, even kiltered pace on this one. So let's take a look at this intro. So we do have a lot of chords. So we're starting on a C chord and we're going to break this up into four measures. This is going to be a four measure strumming pattern and we're going to do it all as eighth notes. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and okay, we're going to keep it simple that way. So the first measure, let's just play a C chord. The strumming pattern is 1 and 2 and, and 4 and okay, so down, up, down, up, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, up, down, up. That's the first two measures. Okay, 1 and 2 and, and 4. And what's happening is we are changing to an A chord on an up strum. Okay, so it's 1 and 2 and.
1 and 2 and again down, up, down, up.
Okay, so that's the tricky part. But once you do that, you just repeat it twice and that's your first two measures. So it's 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And. Let me play it without me talking over it.
Okay, so that's our first two measures. Six, C and A. One and two and. And four. And one and two and. And four and. And. Even if you're not a great singer, I find if you sing these rhythms, you can then apply it to the guitar much easier. All right, so our last two measures, we have a lot more chord movement. We're going back to that C chord, and it starts the same one and two and. Okay, but then we have another two ups. Okay, so it's down, up, down, up, up, up. Okay, down, up, down, up, up, up. So the count is one and two and. And. And. And it's going to be C. Down, up, down. The first up is A. The second up is G. The fourth up is the F. Okay. And if you want to. If you want to play F major 7, you can. Can. It doesn't really sound like the song. You can, though, if you need to. But that real F chord is really what we want. So we've got one and two, and. And. And.
One and two.
Up, up, up. All right, so if I put the first three measures together. This.
Okay, now we jump into that last measure. We're going to stay on the F. Lots of ups. We're not doing A down on the one. It's going to be and. And. And then we got 3, 4 on D. So two downs on D. So it's going to be 1 and 2 and 3, 4. So you got to change really fast and on 2 and. And then right onto that D, 3, 4. All right, so I'm going to take it from the beginning all the way through very, very slowly. Okay, so we got 1, 2, ready M.
Okay, hear that? So we got a little bit faster.
And then finally a little bit more full speed. One, two, ready, M.
So if you need to pause the video and go back and rewind and play that as many times as possible, feel free to do that. But if you're ready to move on to the next cool strumming pattern we're going to use throughout this song. Let's get into it. So this strumming pattern is really cool. I'm going to show you how to get a little bit percussive, because I think it adds an extra oomph to the song, especially if you're playing by yourself on an acoustic guitar. So the great thing about this verse, a lot of D. I just counted. We have eight measures of D, two measures of A, two measures of B minor, followed by four measures of D. And then it just repeats that for all the Verses. So I'm going to show you the strumming pattern we're going to use over this, and it's going to sound like this.
Ah, pretty cool. Now, you don't have to add in this percussive element if you don't want to. I'll show you both ways, and you can pick whichever version you want without the percussive element. It's going to sound like this.
Again, as a solo acoustic guitar person, I think it sounds really cool with that percussive element. So I'm going to show you how to do that here. So the strumming pattern on the D is going to be down, up, up, down, up, up. Okay, one and. And three and.
And.
And what I'm doing on two and four is I'm going to hit my guitar. It's going to mute the strings, almost doing like a little karate chop. Now if you just hit the strings, it's going to be this little, like, tappy sound, and that's fine too. Sometimes you'll hear me, I will really karate chop the guitar. And what's happening is kind of my pinky finger is hitting the hollow body of the guitar, and it gives it almost like this snare drum kind of feel. So listen, it's going to sound like this.
Okay, so we got this percussive element that's coming in. So it's going to be down, up, chop, up, down, up, chop, up, down, up, chop. So once you go through the strumming pattern once, it just becomes up, down.
Up, up, down, up, up, down, up, up, down, up, up, down, up.
Okay, so that's what we're going to be doing throughout the verses of this song. So let me play through a verse here to demonstrate for you guys what this is going to sound like. All right, I'll take it from our intro. Okay, so we got 1, 2, 1, 2.
I took a job in the city.
Working for the man every night and day And I never lost a minute of sleep Worrying about the things might have been Big wheels keep on turning brown Baby, keep on burning.
Rolling, rolling.
Rolling on a river.
Now, you guys didn't see it off screen. I kind of jumped into the Ike and Tina version. I, like, started flying right into it. So if you guys do want to spice this up like Ike and Tina, you can either just pick up the speed of that strumming fast.
It could come down to the river. Bet you're gonna find some people in here don't you worry. Cause you have no money.
So if you want to play, you know the I Cantina Turner version, whichever one is your preference. It's just a speed difference there, so you can use the same strumming pattern. It's just you're going to pick up the speed if you want to transition to the I Cantina version. Now, if you guys are huge CCR fans, I have an entire playlist right over there of CCR songs. See if your favorite songs listed over there. If not, leave me a comment below and maybe I'll do your CCR song next.
