Chords for Pictures Of Matchstick Men by Status Quo Guitar Lesson

_ _ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _
_ [A] _ _ _ _ _ _ [Eb] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [D] _ _
_ [F] _ _ _ [C] _ _ _ [G] _
_ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ Hi there, I'm Adrian and today I'm going to be taking a brief look at how to play the main riff from
Pictures of Matchstick Men by Status Quo.
This is an amazing riff, really easy to play.
When I first heard this song I didn't in fact realise it was by Status Quo.
I think like [C] many people I associated Status Quo with 12 bar boogie and dodgy ponytails
but this song is in fact from a very early incarnation of the band when they were more of a 60s psychedelic band.
It really is a fantastic song and lots of fun to play. _ _
I think an important part of this riff is the actual sound you get.
There's some kind of effect used on the guitar, it's either a phaser or a flanger, something like that.
I'm not sure exactly what was used on the original recording, whether it was an effects pedal or whether it was more of a studio based effect.
Today I'm just using my old Boss flanger pedal which seems to get me quite close to the original sound
but any kind of modulation type pedal would work as well I think, so a phaser or a chorus pedal would do as well.
_ Let's get to the actual riff itself.
As I say it couldn't be easier to play really.
It's all played on the B string of the guitar and we're starting up [G] at the 15th fret on the B string.
I'm just going to play that with my 3rd finger.
I'm going to play that note _ _ _ _ 5 times
and then I'm going to play the 13th fret on [B] the B string _ _ [Fm] 3 times.
That's the first bar of the riff.
So the [D] 15th fret _ _ _
_ _ [Cm] _ _ down to the 13th fret.
That's all [Ab] played in even eighth [Gm] notes.
So 1 and 2 and [C] 3 and 4 and_
Then we go up [Em] to the 17th fret again on the B string, _ _ _ _ _ 5 times playing that [D] note.
Then we go back to the 15th fret, _ _ _ play that 3 more times.
That's the second bar of the riff.
So far we've got this.
_ _ _ _ [Cm] _ _ _ _
[A] _ _ _ _ [D] _ _ _
I'm playing all [Bb] of this with down strokes.
I think that sounds good for this riff if you just dig in and play quite hard with all down strokes. _
So the riff continues like this.
We've got _ [G] _
a little run from the 13th fret to the 14th fret to the 15th fret on the B [Ab] string.
_ [Gm] _ _
Then we're just playing that [C] 15th fret note again I think [G] _
6 _ _ _ _ more times.
So just that bar slowly and _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
then we just repeat that exactly the same another time. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ So it really is very very easy to play.
Let me just play the entire riff slowly for you once. _ _ _ _
_ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _ [B] _
_ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ [G] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
[D] So rhythm is all eighth notes [Ab] except when you've got that little 13, [Dm] 14, 15th fret [C] run up
where the rhythm is _ two 16th notes and an eighth note.
So [Gm] 1 e and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 e and 2 and 3 and 4 and.
So let me play the entire riff.
I'll just put my flanger pedal on and play the entire thing up to speed. _ _
_ _ [C] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _
[Db] _ _ [C] _ _ _ [D] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[N] _ And there we have the main riff.
I'll just quickly take you through the chords that go underneath the riff as well.
Again they're very very simple.
We've got two beats on D, two beats on F, two beats on C and two beats on G.
Those are the chords for the verse of the song.
It's just those four chords played over and over.
For the chords underneath the actual lead guitar riff that we just looked at,
it's those four chords followed by an extra two bars on the D chord.
[B] And I think you've got a couple of options when it comes to playing the chords.
You could play them _ down towards the head of the guitar.
You could play an [D] open D, _ [F] an F bar chord, [C] _ open C _ [G] and then a G bar chord at the third fret.
I think that sounds pretty good.
Just [Bb] two beats on each one.
Essentially two down [D] strums on each chord. _ _ _
[F] _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _ [G] _
_ [Bb] You could spice that up with a few upward strums as well [D] if you want to.
_ [F] _ _ _ [C] _ _ _
_ [G] _ _ _ _ [D] _ _
And then [Eb] the other option when it comes to playing the chords is to play them a little bit higher up the neck using some different shapes.
In fact, looking at some video footage of Status Quo playing it,
I think one of the guitarists, Francis Rossi, plays the chords higher up the neck.
And then the other guy, Rick Parfit, I think plays the _ chords [D] down at this end of the neck.
It's quite a good trick when you're playing in a band that's got two guitar players to _ play different chord voicings
because that kind of thickens up the sound a little bit if two guitarists aren't playing exactly the same thing.
So if you want to play the chords a bit higher up the neck, you could play a D _ _ bar chord up at the 10th fret with the root on the [F] sixth string.
_ F would be a bar chord at the 8th fret, root on the fifth [C] string.
C at the 8th fret again, but with the root on the sixth string.
And then to a [G] G, _ which is an A form bar chord with the root on the fifth string again.
If you're not sure of your bar chord shapes, [Abm] there is actually a lesson that I've done on bar chords.
So you might want to check that out if you're not familiar with some of those chords.
But let me just play through the chords in that area of the neck.
We've [D] got D, _ _ _ [F] F, [C] _ _ C, [G] _ G.
[D] _
_ _ [F] _ _ _ [C] _ _ _
[G] _ _ _ [D] _ _ _ And one further thing you could try for maximum psychedelic effect, if you've got a wah-wah pedal,
you could turn that on to play these chords.
And that sounds really fantastic.
Let me just _ flip on my wah-wah pedal and give that a try.
We've _ got_
[F] _
_ _ [C] _ _ [G] _ _ _ [D] _
_ _ [F] _ _ _ [C] _ _ [G] _
_ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _
There you [Abm] go.
So I think that's about it for this lesson.
If you want to play the chords to the rest of the song, it's actually fairly straightforward.
It's probably quite a good exercise for you to listen to it and try and work them out for yourself.
But if I have time, I will try and put a full chord chart up on my website.
_ So that's it for this lesson.
Hope you've enjoyed it and I hope to see you for another lesson again very soon.
Bye bye. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _