The SECRET to STRUMMING Like Johnny Cash - I Walk The Line Guitar Lesson

Keep a close eye on this heart of mine.

I keep my eyes wide open all the time.

Hey, guitar enthusiasts, in this lesson, I'm going to show you how to get that classic country sound. But I have a way to work up to it. So we're going to show you in the lesson right now.

So this is a great song for beginners because it's only using three chords. We're going to be using an E major chord, an A major chord, and a D major chord. Okay? So if you want to play this song, you're going to want to practice chord changes going from E to A. Then you're going to go A to D. And then the last one is D to A. All right, so now we're going to talk about the strumming pattern, and we're going to work through it step by step so that you guys can understand how we get from point A to point B. Because that's what we do on this channel, make guitar make sense for you guys. So we're basically doing what's called an eighth note strumming pattern. It's going to be 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And. And to start, we're just going to be doing all down strums. Okay. So it'll sound like this. I'm going to play an E major chord, and I'll tell you what I'm doing in a second. But this is what it's going to sound.

So this is what we call a boom, Chuck type pattern. We have boom and then we have Chuck boom from the bass, chuck from the treble of the strings. So before I tell you what strings you're going to target, I just want you to get comfortable with the strumming pattern. So you may just hit the first couple of strings, but you're going to be doing a down strum on the lower strings of the guitar. Then you're going to try not to hit them again. You're going to try and do a down strum on the higher strings. So we have low strings, high strings, low strings, five strings.

1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And so if you need to pause the video to practice that for a little bit. Pause and practice that. And if you're ready to jump on to the next step, let's go for it. So now we're going to be talking about targeting strings. So this is step two. We're not alternating the bass strings yet, but I just want you to focus on targeting one single note on a chord. So for an E chord, that would be the top string. For the A chord, that would be the fifth string. And for the D chord, that would be the D string. Okay? So E string is the. Or E chord. Top string, A chord, fifth string, D chord, fourth string. Okay? And what we're going to do is it's going to be 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And so I'm just trying to hit that top string, and then I'm skipping over it and getting the rest of the strings. Okay, now for the A chord, it's going to be the same thing. Fifth string. And then hit the higher strings.

Okay. And then D chord, we've got the fourth string.

So a good little exercise for you guys if you want to go slow, is just to rotate between the three chords to see if you can figure out targeting your strings. All right, so we got E, A, D, E, A, D.

So before I show you how, we're going to introduce the alternating bass pattern, which is what you heard me play on the intro. Let me just play through one verse so that you guys, if this is where you need to start, you can hear what it's going to sound like. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 1.

I keep a close watch on this heart of mine.

I keep my eyes wide open all the time.

I keep.

The ends out for the ties that bind.

Because you're mine.

I walk the line.

So you can hear how that boom Chuck pattern is really, really driving the song. But now I want to show you how we're going to take this to the next level. Still kind of beginner to late beginner here. All right. And we're going to be working on alternating patterns now. So for the E chord, we're not just targeting the top string anymore. We're actually going to be alternating between the sixth string and the fifth string. So it's going to be 1, 2, 3, 4. Okay, E, A, E, A. Now for the A chord, it's going to be A, E. Okay, so string five, string six.

And then for the D chord, it's actually going to be four, four to five. Okay. D string, A string.

So now if we put this together with our strum, it's going to be sixth string down, fifth string down.

To the A chord.

Okay, now the D chord is going to be the fourth string.

Fifth string.

Once again, from the E string, we got E.

To a.

Now, d.

So you guys can go back and loop that as many times as you need to get this down. But I'm going to play through another verse of this song. I'll play through the second verse so that you guys can hear how it will sound in the actual song.

I find it very.

Easy to be true.

I find myself alone when the day is through.

And yes, I'll admit that I'm a fool for you.

Because you're mine.

I walk the line.

Now that you guys know how to play that classic Johnny Cash sound, if you're interested in learning how to play the intro to this song, as well as a little bit more of an intricate strumming pattern, then I'm going to show you how to do that step by step in that video right over there.