Chords for Beginner Slack-Key Guitar Lesson

_ Okay, well, um, aloha everybody.
This is going to be a slack key guitar lesson
_ designed to take
Somebody who kind of already knows how to play the guitar
But doesn't have knowledge of how to play slack key guitar to take them from
zero knowledge to just a little bit to take you through your first exercise, but
This this this test will this lesson will assume that you know nothing about slack key guitar
_ _ Okay, so the first thing first things first in order to play some slack key guitar you're gonna have to retune your guitar so
_ I
Have my guitar in standard tuning here _ _
_ But playing E chord.
It sounds like an E chord
_ [B]
and
In order to get to a slack key tuning you have to retune
three of the strings so
You have to take a sixth string which is normally an E and tune it down to a D
[Eb] _ [Db] _ _ _ _ _ [D] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [D] _
[F] Which I'm doing right now [Am] you didn't have to take your fifth string which is normally an A
_ [Gb] _ And you want to turn [G] it down to a G _ _
_ _ _ _ You can sometimes check it by playing that octave there _ _ _ and then you want to take the first string which is normally [Em] an E
_ [D] _ _ Turn it down to a D
_ _ _ _ [B] _ _ _
[G] Sometimes when you reach in the strings the other
Strings that even the strings that you don't detune kind of [D] starts to act funny
So I'm gonna check my tuning here just to make sure everything is cool
_ [G] _ _ _ [D] _ _ _
_ [Dm] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ Alright, [Eb] and then what you have is when you don't touch any of the strings you [G] get a chord _ _ in this case a G chord
_ [E] See if I play my old equal
[Bb] Sounds terrible
_ [D] _ But that's the first thing you gotta do you get a retune
The notes are D G [G] D [Bm] G B
[D] _ D
This is summarized in the PDF that I've attached to my website
_ So that's the first thing _
After you do that, there's a couple of basics that you [Eb] have to get used to the first really [Bb] important thing is
_ [Gb] some [D] finger assignments, so
for a lot of fingerstyle guitar guitarists will
Use this kind of a finger assignment in terms of your right hand
And so let me just spell it out for you your thumb
I'm using a thumb pick here, but you don't have to your thumb is responsible for the sixth fifth and fourth strings _ _ _
Your pointer [G] fingers responsible for the third string
Your middle fingers responsible to the second string [Bm] and your ring finger is responsible for the first string
[Bb] Now you don't have to play it this way
There are [D] lots of people who don't [G] _ _ _
but I find that this is the easiest way to get [D] it done.
_ _ _ [G] _
_ Hopefully you can see that _ _ _
_ So it's the first thing you got to use to is that finger assignment.
[E] The second thing to get used to [D] is
Your thumb is going to play a very regular
_ Ostinato bass so a bass line that really just keeps [Gm] repeating _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ just keep going fifth or
Fourth through a lot of the song and then when you change [D] chord, you're gonna go six
_ _ _ _ _ Go back you go back to five four _ _ _ _ that much is relatively simple.
So that one's easy to pick up [Eb] again
You're just going five four five four or six four six four again
You can see this in the sheet music, but that's the kind of low notes the thumb [F] part
Now the other [Eb] fingers are gonna take care of the the higher notes
_ [E] And I want you to think of them in terms of positions
_ there are a number of slacky guitar kind of positions that are commonly used and
So we're gonna think of the first one is four five
That is on the third string fourth fret and on the first string fifth fret and you're gonna go pointer finger and pinky
I find this the easiest way to do it just to keep those two fingers like that and
_ _ _ [G] _ _ _
You can play that again with your pointer finger and your ring finger _
This is the first position trying to move my fingers out of the way there so you can see it _ _ _ now
_ The next position up is gonna [Am] be five seven.
_ You can play them again like that and seven nine
[G] _ _ _ _ _ [C] _
_ _ _ [Bm] _ _ _ [Em] twelve fourteen
_ _ _ _ [G] Again, if you start in the kind of home position, it's four five _
Five seven _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [E] _ [C] _ _ _ [Bb] _ Twelve [D] twelve fourteen and I want you to come back _ _
twelve [C] nine ten
[Bm] _ seven nine
_ [G] _ five seven [F] _ _ [G] _
back home _ and once you get used to this kind of notion of positions have been on the [F] neck and
_ [Bb] your alternating bass
If you put them together _
Here's what the written exercise looks like [G] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [D] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ switch when you come back down you change the bass note, but you just come back down
_ Well, you can't
_ _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _
_ This is an exercise that is [Eb] that's designed to teach you some of the basics the retuning
[D] the
[G] Steady bass line and the positions moving up and down the neck and play it for you one more time _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [D] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [G] _ _ _ _ Consider that [E] the first skill that you might need to have to play slacky guitar
_ There will be more in the future but for now, um, we'll kind of stick with that
Beginning