Chords for Quick Riff #42 - A Message To You Rudy - The Specials

_ _ _ _ _ [F] _ [Bm] _ [C] _
_ [F] _ _ _ _ _ [C] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [F] _ [C] _ _
_ [G] _ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _
[Am] _ Hi guys, Dave here and today I'm going to show you how to play A Message To You, Rudy
by The Specials.
Quite a simple song structure on this one, we've only got three chords.
The main challenge you're going to find is playing really in time, playing in the pocket
basically with this track.
Ok, I'll take you through some basic shapes for it and I'll show you some variations in
a little while.
The three chords are going to be C, F and G, basically what's known as a [Eb] 1-4-5 chord
progression, C being the 1 chord, F being the 4 and G being the 5 chord.
So for the C, we're going to play just a 3 string shape, it's going to be 3 on the E,
5 on the B and 5 on the G.
_ [C] The way we're going to play the rhythm is we're going to play in between the beats on the ands.
So it's just going to go 1, 2, _ 4.
And probably what you'll notice is that I'm actually playing the chords on the upstroke.
So for the down I just miss the strings with the downstroke and then hit the chord on the up.
That not only helps you to play the right rhythm but also I think it helps with the
sound as well.
You get a nice kind of snappy sound and it's also easier to hit the treble strings I think
with an upstroke like this.
_ _ The other thing I'm doing is after each strum I'm relaxing my left hand on the chord so
that it keeps the chords nice and short and staccato.
Perfect for kind of scar rhythms.
[Em] _ _ Right, so that's the C, you get 4 [N] strums on that.
Then we're going to play F.
Now the shape I'm using is basically like a D shape but
I'm playing it up at the 5th fret.
So that's 5E, 6B, 5G.
And we just do 2 strums on that one.
[F] _ [G] Then we move that shape up 2 frets to play the G.
_ [Em] So you just get this one _ _ [E] _ _
[Em] like that.
Now you could use that throughout the whole song if you wanted to but if you get bored
of that and you want to try a few variations I'm going to show you some now.
So first of all I'm going to give you an alternative for C.
Basically it's going to be like an F shape.
I'm just barring across the 8th frets on the E and B strings and 9 on the G.
So I'm just going to substitute the C.
I'm going to play the other 2 chords the same.
So you could play [Em] it like this.
_ [C] _ _
[E] _ [G] _ _ [C] Another variation we can do is play a caged A shape for the F and G chords.
So for the F chord that would be 8E, 10B, 10G and then for the G chord we just move
it up 2 frets.
So you get this.
_ _ [E] _ _
[Em] _ If you want to mix it up a little bit more we could play that shape for the C, the caged
A shape for the and we could do the caged D shape for the G.
So you get [C] this.
_ [Em] _
_ _ _ So there you are a few variations on how you can play these 1, 4, 5 progressions.
Like I say the main challenge really is keeping it in time with the track.
It's such a sparse rhythm [C] it really does expose any kind of timing problems that you might have.
I find this one a really good one to really work on my upstrokes as well.
So although a simple song not necessarily that easy to play.
Not to get it just right.
So I should present a bit of a challenge for you.
Alright guys I hope you enjoyed this lesson and I will see you for one real soon. _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [G] _ [C] _ _
_ [B] _ _ _ _ _ [C] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [G] _ [C] _ _
_ [G] _ _ _ _ _ [C] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [G] _ [C] _ _
_ [G] _ _ _ _ _ [C] _ _