Chords for Brown Sugar in Standard Tuning (Rolling Stones Guitar Lesson)

_ _ [C] _ _ [F] _ _ _ [E] _
_ _ [C] _ _ [F] _ _ [C] _ [Gm] _
_ _ [C] _ _ [F] _ _ [C] _ [G] _
_ _ [C] _ _ [F] _ _ [Eb] _ _
[Bbm] _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ [Bb] _ _
[C] _ _ _ _ _ _ [Eb] _ _
[Bbm] _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ [Bb] _ _
_ _ [C] _ _ [C] _ _ _ _
_ I'm not going [F] _
to [Bb] be [F] _ _ _ [C] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [Bb] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [G] _ able _ _ _ to do it.
[C] _ I'm not going to be able to do it.
I'm not going to be able to [G] _ _ [Bb]
do it.
I'm [C] not going to be able to do it.
I'm not going to be able to do it.
_ _ [Ebm] _ _ _ [C] _
_ _ _ [Bb] _ _ [Bbm] _ _ _
[F] _ _ [C] _ [Ebm] _ _ _ [Eb] _ [C] _
_ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ [Am] _ [F] _
_ _ _ I'm not going to be able to do it.
_ _ _ _ I'm not _
_ _ [C] _ going to be _ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ [C] _ _
able [G] to [Bb] _ _ [C] _
do it.
Okay, before we start breaking this down, just a quick note on the tuning.
Keith of
course is known for using open G [N] tuning which would require you to tune the
first and sixth strings down a whole step from E to D and the fifth string
down a whole step from A to G so that you could play an open chord and it
would be a G major.
We're not going to do that.
The reason is what I'm showing you
today is how to play Keith Richards in standard tuning.
Keith is known for not
even using the sixth string.
He's got a famous quote about only needing five
strings to play the guitar and of course your first string doesn't add much in
the way of beat.
So what you're mostly getting in these classic Keith licks are
the second, third and fourth strings which are the same in standard tuning as
in open G.
So you can play a lot of these cool Keith licks in standard tuning like
I did in that demo you just watched _ and they sound pretty darn good because the
main thing you're missing is the fifth string.
There are some Keith songs that
you absolutely have to play in the standard tuning to make them sound right.
_ Can't You Hear Me Knocking, Honky Tonk Women being two good examples.
But
Brown Sugar I think you can pretty well get away with.
So that's what I'm going
to be showing you here.
We're going to be building off of what I showed you in
lesson number four, the last lesson.
We saw how Fogarty used in [E] Proud Mary [D] that
movable A chord shape up to the seventh fret [G] to go to _
[D] _ _ _ _ _ _ [E] the four, the D to the G.
Keith's doing a similar thing [A] throughout Brown Sugar.
He starts off at the 12th
fret so you're going to borrow those three strings, 4-3-2, playing a G chord there
right?
And so the _ four chord from the G would be a C chord.
So that's what we're
playing.
Only Brown Sugar is in C so we're actually going from the C to the G.
The C is the one.
_ So it's kind of like [E] a 1-5 in reverse.
_ So that's the way [C] it
starts.
[G] _ _ [C] Okay, real simple.
_ [G] _ _ [E] We come down to the fifth fret.
You're borrowing that
with that [C] same shape.
It's a C chord there and _ _
[F] _ _ [C] _ _ [Gb] he's going C to F.
So that is
the one.
So he's going C-G-C-F. _
If you think about that, if you saw those chords
just written out and you tried to play them like in first [C] position, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
you'd think
wow that sounds really lame.
That doesn't sound anything like Keith.
Well that's
why Brown Sugar is a really good example of why you need to know how to play
chords all over the fretboard [B] because they really do sound substantially
different depending on where you're playing them.
Okay, so that's the main
intro.
He plays it four times.
The second and third time he changes the rhythm on
it a little bit so it's kind of more like [G] _ [C] _
_ _ [F] _ [C] _ _ [Ab] something like that.
You can listen
to the record and get it exactly right.
But you play that four times.
_ Then it
goes to the next signature lick.
He's sliding that A shape up to the eighth
fret.
[Eb] Okay, so like this.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
Okay, so that's an E-flat. _ _
[Bb] _ _ _ _ [Abm] _ _ You'll see other people tab this out as
playing that exact [Ab] same lick here [F] _ _ [Am] and [E] here.
But he doesn't.
He does different
hammer-ons in this next go-around here, this next little progression.
_ And it does
make a difference in [F] the sound.
So what he's doing [Eb] there, _ [Bb] _ _ [Eb] _
_ [Abm] your middle finger is
doing the same thing as on the previous [Fm] lick, but your ring [Eb] finger, instead of
being on the fourth string two frets up from your [Bb] bar, it's on the [Eb] third string
two frets up from your bar.
So, _ [Db] _ _
_ [Eb] _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [E] okay, down to the C again at the fifth fret.
This
[Bbm] time you're just hammering on with one finger, second string one fret up, so six
fret.
[C] So essentially what you're playing there is _ a [F] C suspended
[C] four. _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Eb] So again, _ _ _ _
[C] _ _ _ _ _ [Ab] _ _ _
[Bb] _ _ _ _ _ _ [Ab] okay, so down to first [E] fret, which would be an A-flat, just [Db] hammer-on
again one [Ab] string, _ _ _ second fret, _ second string, _ _ _ [Bb] _ _
_ [E] up to a B-flat bar there at the
third [B] fret, playing that [E] same little lick we did [Bb] up here.
_ _ Coming back [C] to the C
with our one to four. _ _ _ _
_ That's [E] basically it.
You'll see other stuff out there, like I
[F] said, that has every [Dbm] one of those [Bb] positions playing [Gbm] that [C] exact same, _ _ but
it's not.
[F] It's different.
_ _ [Eb] _ _ _
[F] _ _ [C] _ _ [Ab] _ _ _ _
[C] _ _ [F] _ _ [C] _ _ _
[B] So the only one that is like [F] that is the last [Em] one when he
comes back to the C to the F.
Okay, so then the first _ verse starts.
It's [C] a C
chord. _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [F] _ _ _ _ _
[Bb] _ [F] _ _ So what I did [C] there, I went from a [F] C to an F, and on the [Bbm] F I just [F] hammered on it.
[C] It's the
same chords as the intro.
We're using C, F, B-flat, and so forth.
So, C, [F] F, _ [Cm] hammer-on,
[Bb] B-flat.
_ [F] _ _
_ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Bb] _ _ _ _ _ [C] _ _
_ _ _ [E] Okay, so that was just [G] C to B-flat, and then you come to the G, _ _ _ _ _ the brown
sugar _ _ chorus.
_ Here's where Keith does a [Am] lot of really cool licks in open G,
because [G] again, he's _ coming to an open G [C] chord there, which we can't [E] do
because we're not in open G.
So I do something like [Bb] this, [G] _ _ _ [Bb] _ _
_ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
_ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ [C] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[Eb] _ _ _ [Ab] and then back to
that riff.
So again, during the brown sugar part, it's not going to be exactly
Keith.
If you want to be exactly Keith, you do have to do the open tuning.
[Em] There's
an excellent _ _ _ _ demonstration _ _ of this on YouTube.
The guy's YouTube
name is My Twangy Guitar, _ and he doesn't talk you through it.
It's not a lesson.
It's just a close-up like this of him playing brown sugar in open tuning, and
it's awesome.
He's playing it on a 72 Tele Deluxe, and he hits all the Keith
licks.
_ [A] Really, really cool, but again, using six strings in open G.
Okay, that's all
we've got time for with brown sugar.
There is the ending licks, which you play
a little Chuck Berry over a G to a C.
I'm going to let you figure that out on your
own. _ _
Get out those Telecasters and play some Keith Richards.
Thanks for joining
me, and we will see you next time. _