Chords for Basic Mandolin- You Are My Sunshine

_ [G] _ _ _ [Abm] _ [A] _ _ _
[G] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Gbm] _ [G] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ [G] _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ [G] _
_ _ _ _ _ [C] _ [D] _ [G] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _ _
[G] _ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _ _
[G] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [D] _
_ [G] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [D] Howdy!
Welcome to BanjoVinClark.com. I'm your humble host, Banjo Ben.
Good to [N] have you
here today.
This week we're learning a mandolin version, actually two mandolin
versions to You Are My Sunshine.
You just heard them.
The very first one I'm going to teach you
how to play just a very basic melody.
Okay, so if you just started playing mandolin, this one's
perfect for you.
But then the second time through, I'm going to teach you there on the website how
to take that basic melody and just build it up just a little bit.
We're going to add some eighth
notes in there, add some kind of some drone notes just to help you fill in the space.
So you'll
learn not only a new version to this one, but you'll be able to transfer those skills to other
songs that you know as well.
Okay, if you're watching this on Facebook or YouTube, I invite
you to go over to the website BanjoBenClark.com where I do a lesson like this each and every
week on banjo, mandolin, and guitar.
There on the website there's lots of goodies.
Okay, I have the
full video lesson over there which includes me teaching every single note.
And then I also play
each version through very slowly.
And I've got four different speeds of guitar video rhythm tracks
where you can practice along.
But that's not all.
I also have the tabs over there.
Okay, so I have
this PDF of both of the versions here.
And then I have the tef file.
And then even better, I have an
mp3 that you can download.
That's the backup tracks that I played in the performance version
at the top of this video.
Okay, sounds good.
All right, we'll see you over there on the site.
Let's
dive into You Are My Sunshine.
You Are My Sunshine and the Key of G on mandolin.
We've got a couple
different versions here.
Both of them are basic.
The first one's very, very basic.
We're just going
to play the basic melody.
And then the second one, String Measure 17, we'll get to it, just shows you
and I talk through how to build upon your basic melody just a little bit just to spice it up a
little bit.
And we'll get there.
But in our first measure of the basic melody, you'll notice I have
the words beneath each one of the notes.
But I also have these little black arrows that you see.
And those are just pick stroke directions.
I just want you to get used to that.
Actually, all of the
[D] pick strokes in our first basic melody here are down strokes because we're just playing quarter
notes and half notes and whole notes.
In the second version, we're going to get into some eighth notes.
So we'll have [N] to do some alternating picking.
Okay, so the arrows will come more in handy there.
Okay, this is in 4-4.
That means that there's four beats in each one of these measures.
Okay, and so the first measure, we have a rest on the first beat.
So we don't play anything.
And
we come in on the second beat.
You are my sunshine.
And that second beat [D] is going to be the open D
string.
Okay, that's you.
And [G] then we're going to play the fifth fret with our ring finger.
_ And then we're going to play the open A string.
[Am] _ _ And then we're going to land on [N] the second fret
of the [Bm] A string for sunshine. _ _ _ _
Now we [B] have to do that in time.
Okay, so [D] I'm going to count
and we're going to play it slowly here.
One, _ _ [G]
three, [D] four, [B] one, _ _ _ two, four.
Okay, so those
two notes in measure two, the sunshine, [D] those are half notes.
They get two beats.
That's why there's only two of them in that measure.
One more time.
One, you [G]
[A] are my [B] _ sunshine.
_ Now keep it down.
Even though we have a rest there in the first beat of measure three, you can lift
it if you want.
But you're welcome to just keep it down because we're going to be coming right back
to it in the second beat.
Okay, my only sunshine.
So we got some more quarter notes here in measure
three.
And it's just going to be two, open, two.
So measure three sounds like this.
One, two, [A] [G] three,
four.
Simple.
And then we're going to land on the fifth fret of that D string for sunshine.
Okay, so measures three and four together slowly.
One, [B] [Am] my _ [B]
only [G] _ _ sunshine. _ _
Great.
Now we're just going
to walk it up in measure five.
You make me happy.
We're going to have a chord change in there for
our rhythm.
We're going to C chord.
But that's not really important to know right now.
But we're
going to start on the second beat of measure five.
Right there on that fifth fret where we [Eb] left off
from measure four.
And we're just, these are quarter notes.
We're going to just walk right
up the scale.
[G] _
[D] Five, open, [B] two.
_ One, [Em] two, three, four.
[Bm] Again, when we get to measure six, [C] there's
_ happy.
These are half notes.
So get two beats a piece.
So the first one's on the third fret of
the A string.
One, two, three, four.
_ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _ _ [D] _ _ [G] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [N] _ _