Chords for You Are My Sunshine Advanced Guitar Lesson - Cross-picking

Howdy there folks, you are at musicwithryan.com, your place for bluegrass guitar, acoustic
guitar, and so much more.
For this lesson I'm going to go over the tune You Are My Sunshine _ in an [A] advanced way.
I have a Carter style, but I'm going to kind of [C] soup that Carter style up and it's going
to be much more advanced with a lot of cross picking.
So a challenge to master some right hand technique.
Let's go ahead and first give the arrangement a listen to.
1, 2, [G] 3, 4, 1.
_ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [D] _ _ _ [C] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [F] _ _
_ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [F] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [D] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ Alright so as you see, a lot of cross picking and so we have to have lots of control in
our right hand.
But this will give you an idea of what [N] you can do in other tunes with the similar chord
progressions, you know, C, F, and G.
So you can use some of these things in different songs, which I think is great.
And again, if you are looking to get in some cross picking, this would be a good chance,
a good arrangement for you to do so.
So if you like the lesson, I'd ask you to go over to my website, musicwithryan.com and
you can check out the full length lesson and you'll get approximately 20 to 25 minutes
of the video.
_ You'll get the tabs for the tune and two backing tracks to practice along with.
And I even do a little rhythm playing at the end of my video lesson as well.
And again, I'm going to walk through it with close ups of my left and right hand and measure
for measure so you can master this tune.
_ _ So yeah, let's go ahead and get started.
Thanks for checking out the video.
Here we go.
Alright, so let's go ahead and walk through You Are My Sunshine here.
Kind of an advanced Carter style thing.
A lot of cross picking, so really want to watch your right hand.
[C] _ _ _ And kind of working out of the [Eb] C slash G position again, kind of maybe if you've seen some of
my other videos that I do.
But you know, if this is my C chord, I'm just going to take my third finger from the low
string and replace it with my pinky.
And then I [C] have a C slash G, which means that the G note is in the bass.
It's a little thicker, a little more lush.
_ Alright, so let's go through the first couple measures here.
[G] Starts on beat two.
_ _ One, two, three, four, one. _
_ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[Em] _ _ _ [C] _ _ _ [D] _ _
_ _ [G] _ _ _ _ Okay, I'm going to do that again, same tempo.
Two, three, four, one.
_ [C] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [D] _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
_ So, a lot going on there of course.
So let's take it [Ab] step by step.
The first measure, relatively easy compared to the [G] piece.
_ Quarter note, _
_ [D] _ [G] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [C] _ and I'm going to play the D string open, and [D] then upstroke and [C] hammer, _
[G] and upstroke the G string. _ _ _
_ [D] _ [Em] _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ One, two, [D] three, and four, [G] and.
_ [G] Okay, and then the next measure I'm going to cross pick _ kind of all the way down from
the high note to the low note, so to speak.
_ [E] Quarter note on the D string, _ and then all the [C] way down, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
all throughout [E] that whole C chord there.
_ _ [C] _
_ _ [Em] _ _ _ _ _
So you're kind of skipping strings almost all the time, and really [Ab] moving so it's in
your right hand is where all the work is, because again your left hand isn't [E] moving.
_ [C] _ _ [Em] _ _ _ _
[C] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ And if you can speed it up it sounds real nice, but _ [D] again take it real [G] slow.
First two measures, one, _ _ _ [Em] _ _ _ _
[C] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
and then an upstroke.
_ _ Moving on, [E] that next measure we have a triplet hammer on pull off. _
_ _ _ Starts on a quarter note, and then [D] open D, hammer, [D] pull. _ _
So again my second finger is going to do the work here.
I'm going to keep my C position down if possible.
I know the tendency is for some people to lift their hand up, but if you can keep it
down it kind of prevents any [C] unwanted overtones, and _ your hand is just kind of ready to go
for the next portions of [E] the tune.
So that measure, _ _
[D] _ _ _ _ _ _ [G] _ _
down, _ _ [E] _ _ open D, hammer on, and pull it off all in one beat. _
Triplet, _ _ _ triplet, or strawberry, _ _ bicycle.
[D] _
[Em] It's kind of the way I remember the triplet feel. _
_ _ _ [D] One, triplet, _ _
_ [E] quarter note, triplet. _ _
And so it takes a little bit to get the triplet feel if you haven't done it, but _ it's a good
little trick to have in your bag of tricks.
Fiddle players do it a lot. _ _
_ [Gm] _ _ I landed on the next note of course.
[E] _ _ _ _ _ _ Triplet, _ [Em] _ and I'm going to [D] come back up [G] _
there and hit that and hammer on that [E] _ _ [G] _
E note in
the second fret.
_ [E] _ _ _ _
_ _ [G] _ _ _ _ [D] _ _
_ _ [G] _ _ [E] _ _ _ _
_ _ One more [Bb] time real slow.
_ [E] _
_ [D] _ One, triplet. _ _ _
[G] _ _ _ Okay, _ _ those three measures.
One. _ _ _ _
[Em] _ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _ _
_ _ [Em] _ _ [D] _ _ _ _
[G] _ _ _ Alright, so watch that triplet, work on that hammer on pull off there.
Moving on to the next three measures. _
Relatively simple here, we're just going to have kind of a filler.