That's Alright Mama Guitar Lesson for BEGINNERS - 4 Chord Song!

So we've got an amazing four chord song by Elvis. And one of those chords is actually very similar to another one you're already playing. So let's go through that first. So we have the D major chord, nice easy chord. We have E7. There's a couple ways you could play it. If you know E major, you could just lift up your third finger. Okay. You could just lift that up and make it simple, E7. But I like adding the pinky on the bottom. Okay, you can play the E major chord and add that pinky on the bottom. It'll give it just a br. Bluesier sound. Alright. And then we got the A major chord. Okay. And there's many ways to play A major. I'm playing it with the first, second and third fingers because it's going to be really easy to go from A to A7. I just lift up my middle finger. But for some of you, you're gonna need a bar of this chord. Depending how thick your fingers are, maybe you might even only be able to play it with two fingers. Some people have fingers that are big enough that they can play a three finger chord. A chord that would take me three fingers, they can play it with two. So whichever works best for you, play your A chord. And then we have the A7 chord, which as I said is just like an A chord, except the G string is ringing open in any one of those seven chords. You could just play the regular chords too. So if that E7 chord is a little funky for you and you just want to play an E major chord, that'll work perfectly fine. So now that we know what guitar chords we're using for. That's alright mama, let's talk about the strumming pattern.

So I'm going to give you two strumming pattern options. We're going to build off the first one, which is the easier one. And then I'll give you a little extra spice that you can add in. And if you don't know me, my name is Lauren Bateman and I specialize in helping beginners, especially older beginners over the age of 50, learn to have fun playing the songs they know and love on guitar. Like this one by Elvis. And what we're going to do is we're going to start off with a very simple strumming pattern. So which is going to be 1, 2, 3 and 4. And 1, 2, 3 and 4. And now this would be the type of strumming pattern that I would show someone probably about level three of my seven level guitar Course. Okay, so what we're going to do, let's just take that E chord. Okay? We've talked about it enough. Let's just take an E chord. Don't worry about the seven. And I just want you to go 1, 2, 3, and 4. And. And that's going to be strummed. And down, down, down, up, down, up. Okay, again. One, two, three, and four. And down, down, down, up, down, up. Okay, let's just practice that a little bit on that E chord. Ready? One, two, three.

All right, so let's pick up the speed a little bit. Because this is a peppy song, Elvis probably plays it a little bit closer to 1, 2, 3, and 4. And 1, 2, 3, and four. Okay, ready? 1, 2, 1, 2, 3. M. 4 M.

Now, you can probably hear my muscle memory took over a little bit, and I started playing the strumming pattern that I want to show you guys, which just has a little bit of a spice to it. Now, ideally, what we're trying to do is we're trying to catch the bass note, the lowest note of the chord, and then that's going to be our first.

They have been playing guitar for over 20 years, and I still drop my picks on the floor, so don't worry about it. If you drop your picks, just bend over, pick them right back up, and go right back to what you were doing. So instead of doing a full down strum, we're just going to be hitting the bass note. And if you're not good at targeting bass notes, just hit a few of the bass notes, but don't strum the whole chord. We're trying to ignore these treble notes. Okay, so it'll be 1, 2, 1, 2.

Here on the first strum, it's got more of a bass tone to it. In the second strum, we get more of those bright tones coming through. That's what we're trying to do. So it's going to be bass 2, 3, and 4, and bass 2.

Now, on the A chord, we're just going to try and get that A note.

And then the D chord, we're going to try and get the D note as best as possible.

So the great thing about Elvis songs is that the chorus chord progressions tend to be fairly simple. And you can go follow along with the notes on my website. I do have the chords and the strumming patterns over there. So the intro is going to be about 5A chords. I think I counted. And then we get into the pattern, which is going to be six A chords. Over the verse followed by two measures of A seven. Then we have the D chord for four measures. Then we have an E seven chord for four measures. And then we go back to our A chord for two measures. So the great thing is once you go through that entire pattern, you just go right back to the beginning. So what we're going to do now is I'm going to play through an intro and we're going to play through the verse so that you guys can get a feel for what this is going to sound like. I'll play a little bit slower than Elvis probably plays it on the record so that you can practice. But let's get into it now. If you're a member of my Fellowship of the Strings community, I will give you access to to the Secret link on YouTube that has the full play along. So if you're interested in finding more about that, go to link in the description below and check it out. So let's start off with that intro on the a chord. Ready? 1, 2, 1, 2, 3 and 4. M.

Get that rhythm down. 1, 2, 3 and 4 dot And 1, 2, 3 and 4. And 1, 2, 3 and four. And here we go.

All right mama that's all right for you that's all right mama Just any way you do that's all right.

That'S all right.

For that song grand mama.

Any way.

Now if you love guitar songs by Elvis, then please go check out my Hound Dog lesson right over there where I'm going to show you how to play step by step.