Lauren Bateman teaches Tracy Chapman's "Talking About a Revolution" on acoustic guitar. The song uses four chords (G, Cadd9, Em, D) that repeat throughout, each held for two beats. The strumming pattern is down, down, up, up, down, up, with a swung feel that delays the second up-strum.
Questions this video answers
G, Cadd9 (used instead of C), E minor, and D.
Down, down, up, up, down, up.
Each chord lasts two beats; the chord change happens on the up-strum.
Chapters
Don't you know that talking about a revolution it sounds like a whisper.
Don'T.
You know I'm talking about a revolution it sounds like a whisper.
Hello, guitar enthusiasts, and welcome to my tutorial video on Tracy Chapman's Talking About A Revolution. Very great song for playing the acoustic guitar, and I love it because it uses my four favorite chords, which are G, C, E minor and D. Actually, it uses them in that order over and over and over again. What's better than that? So if you learn those four chords in that order, you can play the entirety of this song. Now, the tricky part about this song is more the strumming than the actual chords. So we're going to talk about that a bit later. But first I'm going to talk about the chords. So if you know G, C, E minor and D, you can play those regular chords. I'm going to show you a slightly different version of these chords that I'm going to use for this song. Some of you might actually like these ones better. So instead of C, we're going to use a chord called C add 9, which gives a brighter sound to the guitar. First, we're going to start with our G chord. So most people, you'll probably play your G chord this way with the third finger resting on the bottom string, the third fret. What I'm going to have you do is move that finger up to the second string, third fret and put your pinky right below on the bottom string third fret. So you've kind of got this really bright sound on your E and B strings. So that's the third finger on the third fret. Second string pinky on the third fret of the bottom string. And the top part of your G chord is going to look like a normal G chord. Now what we're going to do, once we've got this set up, all we're going to do to get to C add nine is move our first fin one string and our second finger down one string. So it just looks like a compact G chord. And this is going to be our C add nine. So if we go back to G, we'll move our first finger and second finger up one string each to get to C add nine. First finger down, second finger down one. We've got CAD9. To get to E minor, we're going to play a normal E minor chord, but we're going to leave these two fingers down. So we've got G.
C, C add nine and E minor and then D, we're going to play A normal D chord. So nothing fancy about our D chord. But by playing the chords this way we get a nice bright sound as opposed to.
So it's going to sound like this instead.
So that is the basis for the chords for this song. If you need the chord chart, you can always visit my website, which is laurenbateman.com but this song is very straightforward. G, C, I9, E minor in D. Now the strumming for this song is going to be down, down, up, up, down, up. Or with my G chord it's going to be 1, 2 and, and 4.
And 1, 2 and, and 4and.
Now the tricky part is that we kind of swing the strum a little bit, which means our up strum is delayed. So if we were going to play very straight on the beat, it would sound like this.
And that's not how the song sounds. It's got this more laid back feel. So we're going to swing the strum.
Basically what's happening is the second beat almost has this triplet like feel. And that's why that up strum gets pushed a little bit further back than you would normally play it if it were straight up 8th notes. So again, if I play that strum, just delay that second. Don't be down, down, up.
It's a little bit lazy sometimes. It takes people a little bit to get this swing feel, but that's how you're gonna get the real feel for this song. So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to play a little bit of this song so that you can hear it and get a feel of what I'm doing. But. But that's the entire song. It is G, C, N9, E minor D. And one other little caveat to the strumming and the chords is that each chord is only two beats. That means we're changing chords on the up strum. That's the tricky part. So if I'm going G, it's going.
To be down, down, up, up, down, up, E minor D.
G to C, E minor.
G to C. Down, down, up, up, down, up, down, down, Switch, up, down, up, down, down, switch, up, down, up.
So that is probably the trickiest part of the song is that the chords don't switch on the downbeat. We actually switch on the up. So the first chord gets the downs.
So that is the song, or that is the chords, the chord progression, and the strumming for the song. I'm going to play through a little bit just so that you can hear and get a feel for it, so. So let's go over to that. 2, 3, 4.
Don't you know we're talking about a revolution it sounds like a whisper.
Don'T.
You know they're talking about a revolution it sounds like a whisper.
Are they standing in the welfare lines.
Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation Wasting time in the unemployment lines Singing around waiting for a promotion? Don't you know we're talking about a revolution? It sounds like a whisper.
Don'T you know we're talking about a revolution? It sounds like a whisper.
And there you have it. That's Tracy Chapman's talking about a revolution. Work on the strumming. The chords are fairly simple. Work on that strumming pattern of splitting the chords. And as soon as you can do that, take it nice and slow. So I hope you enjoyed this song. I will see you in the next video.
