Sweet Child of Mine Guitar Lesson - SUPER Fun & TONS of Strumming Options

Hey, guitar enthusiasts, welcome back. In this acoustic guitar lesson, we're going to be doing Guns N Roses. Sweet Child of Mine. This is such a rocking song. I can't wait to teach it to you guys. Let's get into the lesson.

So before we even get started, I just want to make you guys aware that my guitar is tuned down a half step. That means each string of my guitar is tuned down by one note. That's what Guns N Roses does. So if you want to sound like Guns n Roses, you and like me, you would take your E string, tune it down one note to E flat. B string would go to B flat. G would go to G flat or F sharp. The D string, D flat, or C sharp, depending on which way your tuner reads it. The. What's the next one? The A string. We go to A flat or G sharp and then E flat again on the top string. So if you guys want to pause the video and tune up your guitar, go right ahead. If you want to leave your guitar in standard tuning, that's fine. Just understand our guitars might sound just a little bit different. Different. Now, this song has a lot of intricacies. There's a lot of different parts. So just stick with me through it. So let's talk about these intros. In these verses, the chord progression is really, really simple. It's going to be DC gd, and each of these chords is going to be for two measures. So you're going to be playing each chord for eight beats. Okay? And so that's ddcc, gg, dd. And then it just repeats that over and over again for this intro and for the verses. So let's talk about the strumming pattern we're going to use. This is a very, very common strumming pattern. All right. It's going to be an accented eighth note rhythm. This is so common. You guys really should have this one, like, in your toolkit for sure. So now with this song, I'm going to play open chords. I'm using an acoustic guitar, so I'm just going to play open chords. You could play power chords if you wanted to, but I'm going to be doing the open chord versions here. And this is what the rhythm is going to sound like, and then I'll explain it to you.

Okay, so what am I doing here? It's an eighth note pattern. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And all down strums all down. And the accents. I am accenting the first beat. The. And after the two and the fourth beat. And how I'm doing that is with palm muting. Now, if you're not familiar with palm muting or how to do that technique, I'll put a video up here to my palm muting lesson. You can go check that out afterwards if you want to perfect this technique. But all I'm doing is I'm letting the chord ring on the one and then I'm palm muting on the and two, and then I'm letting it ring for. And. And then I'm palm muting three and. And then four rings and is palm muted. So it sounds like this again.

Okay, so you hear that? 1, 2 and 4. 1 and 4. 1 and 4. So that's the accents we're doing. So if I didn't even palm you.

It would be 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4.

So that's what we're going to be doing for the strumming pattern for this intro and for the verse. And don't worry, I will do some playthroughs later, but I just want to get through each of the sections first. So the chorus section, we're essentially going to be doing the same thing with a little space spice on the end chord. So I like to do little flourishes on this sometimes. So the chord progression for this chorus is going to be an A chord, A major, a C chord, and then a D chord twice. So again, we're going to be doing the same pattern.

So on the last one, I like to do a little four and a. So I just throw a little circle. 16th note. It's called a little flourish. Little upstrom on the end of that second D chord to get me back in to the chorus. And at that point I'm releasing the palm muting on the fourth beat. So what's that gonna sound like? What does that all mean? It's 1 and 2 and 3 and.

4, and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4S, and 1 and 2 and 3, and 4. And 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and a half.

Hear how all those last three strums rung out? And it's just a quick down, down, up, down, down, up. So altogether that'll sound like this.

Okay. And then it just loops through again right back to that A chord. Hey, guys, hope you're enjoying this lesson so far. It's so much fun. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel. Turn on the notifications. This way. YouTube will let you know when I release more song lessons just like this one. So after we go through a verse and a chorus, there's a solo section. And the solo is essentially just the verse chords played over and over again. And then we have another chorus. And then something crazy happens in this song. We actually change keys. And when we get into our next solo, we're going to be playing some different chords. So let's talk about what we're going to do on this song. Solo section and the outro of the song. So this chorus, before we get into the solo, that I would do something a little bit different on that last D chord. I would do what I call a crescendo. So we have.

Sweet Child of Mine.

Sweet. So a crescendo airs when we start light. So I was kind of palm muting.

And then digging into the guitar more. And then I release my palm to get more volume out of my guitar. So we're kind of creating a build to get into this solo. Because this is an emotionally exciting part of the song. We're changing keys, which means we're going to be playing different chords in this section. So we want to emphasize that there's a big change coming up. And I like doing that with just a little bit of a crescendo.

One and two and three and four. And one and two and three and four.

So you can hear big difference here. And we're going to be doing some different strumming. So let's talk about what we're doing. All right. So this bridge is where this solo comes in is totally different. The whole emotion and feel of the song changes because we're changing keys, which means we're playing some different chords. And we're going to be doing some different things strumming wise here as well. So we just came out of that crescendo from the D chord.

And then.

This is how we're going to take the solo.

So you can hear my strumming's a lot more open. I'm not doing as much palm muting here. I'm still sticking with eighth notes, and I'm throwing flourishes on the end. So for the E minor. So the chord progression here is. Is E minor, C, B major. Okay. B bar chord and A minor on the end. So we're going 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and a 1 and.

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

Okay. And again, 1 and 2 and 3.

And 4, a 1 and 2 and 3 and Four and a 1 and 2 and 3 & 4 and a 1 and 2 and three and four and.

One. So even within the solo itself, I'm changing up the timing, and I'm really. I really want to try and accent that change on the chord. So take a listen here real quick.

So I'm throwing in at. I get into it more like solos. I mean, I. When I used to play this live with my band, I improvised a lot of the rhythm stuff so the. The rhythm would build as this solo went on. Because you're playing this progression four times. Okay. And then we have this really long A minor at the end. On the. On the fourth time through, we're gonna hold on to that A minor for an extra measure. We have this really, really cool change that comes up. So the fourth time through, we've got E minor, 1 and 2 and 3 and.

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

And. And then our chord progression changes again. We go to E minor, to G.

To A minor.

C, C, D, G. Okay, so that last measure, there's three chords in the last measure. It's C, C, D, G. Okay. C, C, D, G. And then that's where the breakdown comes for the.

Outro. Where do we go.

Now? I come back to palm.

Muting. Where do we go now?

Where do we go?

Where do we go.

Now?

And you can hear I'm throwing in those flourishes again. Listen again real quick.

All right, so you can hear all this. These little flourishes. And that's why this song's more intermediate, because there is a lot going on, strumming, wise, dynamically here in this song. And it's so great with all these. These key changes. And with this breakdown on the end, you are going to want to explode this dynamically, meaning we're gonna start slowly with a lot of palm muting.

Okay.

Where do we go?

Where do we go now?

Where do we.

Go? It go. So as the voice and the music gets bigger and bigger, you're going to want your guitar playing to get bigger and bigger with the song. So just a quick note on this outro before I do kind of like a full playthrough for you guys is there's a part on the end.

Where it goes now, now, now, now, now, now, now.

Switch. So for that part, that now now part, we're going to do three Cs three now, now, now and then three Ds now, now, now and then back to E.

Minor. Sweet.

Child. Now hold A minor to C to D to a. E.

Minor.

2, 3.

4. She's got a smile and it seems to me? Reminds me of childhood memories? When everything as fresh as the bright blue sky?

Cause now and then when I see a face? It takes me away? To that special place it ever stays alone? I probably break down and cry.

Love.

Sweet.

Childhood.

Interlude?

She's got eyes of the bluest skies and if they fall Thought of rain? I hate to look into those eyes and see an ounce of pain the hail reminds me of a warm safe place? Where I as a child hide? I pray for the thunder and the rain? To quietly pass me by?

Oh.

Sweet child of mine?

Sweet love of mine.

Solo.

Extra. A minor.

Ready?

1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and.

6.

Last.

Time.

Where do we go? Where do I go? Where do we go now?

We go.

Where do we go now?

Where do we.

Go? See.

Child? Where do we go now?

Where do we.

Go?

Where do we go now?

Where go.

Now?

Woo.

Here comes that part.

Hey, guitar enthusiasts, I hope you enjoyed this lesson. I will be getting on doing a lesson for the intro to this amazing song. Once that's done, I will put a link up there. Until then, YouTube's gonna recommend a couple more videos over there. Go check those out. And I hope to see you guys in another lesson video real soon.