I’m not really asking how to play it. I’ve been playing this song for awhile along with the recording and I’ve always just “felt” the groove. What I’m trying to do, however, is really internalize the rhythm so I can play this without the recording.
So what I’m asking is how would you write down this strumming pattern? There’s definitely some kind of swing going on here. I play it D D U D U D D but the timing between the first pair of downstrums seems 1/8th note-ish and the timing between the last D U D D is definitely quicker. Are those 1/16th note strums?
I’m not an expert, but since nobody has replied so far…
If I were to play this song solo on an acoustic (or electric I guess), I would try these strumming patterns.
Verse:
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +
D D D U D U
Chorus:
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +
D U D U D U D U
The actual guitar parts in the song are more complicated, I hear a jangly electric playing triads throughout most of the song. There’s also some chord riffage going on in the chorus (around 1:06 in the video you posted) where the strumming seems to change.
As I said, the above patterns could be a starting point for a simple solo version, the actual guitar parts on the recording are surely more complicated. Good luck!
The solo version I play is certainly more complex. I do a combination of the strumming and some of the riffs. When I play it by myself, I also play the intro “solo” part. And as I posted above, the way I play it, the last two strums in a measure are two fairly quick downstrums.
The pre-chorus gets the same strumming pattern as the verse, but it feels different because of the key change. I currently just strum through the solo, the same as the verses. Same with the instrumental outro. I would like to be able to play it without the recording. And once I get that, I’d like to use my looper pedal to layer guitar parts.
In the chorus I’m doing something else entirely. I focus more on the riff portion. That part isn’t exactly relevant here. I did some digging back when I was writing this up into a songsheet to work out the timing on the chorus and I’m pretty sure that there are a couple measures of 2/2 time thrown into the chorus. At least I did see it written up that way in a couple other sources. It makes sense, though.
And then when I play it with my electric I do the strums a little differently. Beat 1 is typically a full downstrum but the rest of the measure is a mix of partial strums and loose picking to sort of evoke that sound of the triads in the recording. Still following the same basic rhythm that I wrote in my first post. The order of the down and up-strums that I wrote out is definitely how I play it. I’m just trying to figure out what that timing is.
I thought I had recorded it at one point but I couldn’t find it on my youtube channel. But I did find my AVOYP thread where I shared it. Strange why I couldn’t find it.
I’ve changed a couple things about how I play it since then, but not the rhythm. Maybe this can help a bit with figuring how to describe the timing of what I’m doing.
Ok, I had a look at your video and had a stab at the strumming pattern that you are using in the verse. It’s a 16th note strumming pattern that I would write out like this:
1 e + a 2 e + a 3 e + a 4 e + a
D D U D U D D
You could work out the timing easier if you kept your strumming hand moving down and up consistently throughout the pattern (which you should do in any case). Look at how Tom Petty’s hand is constantly moving in the official video of the song – just like Justin teaches it
I started strumming it that way over a year ago and had not done anything with 16th notes. And I still haven’t taken any lessons that address 16th notes for that matter. I just started strumming what I was hearing. changing the way I’m moving my hand now (while still strumming the same rhythm?) would completely wreck my ability to play it considering I have no other practice playing/counting 16th notes on anything else. Maybe when I can reliably count/strum 16th note rhythms on other songs I will revisit this one.
For that matter, I’ve never quite meshed with the near-religious fervor of always moving your strumming hand consistently and practically robotically.
I recently took a workshop on strumming from Herb Ohta Jr. (ukulele master) that really clicked with me and he said none of that matters. His philosophy is that only the rhythm matters and it doesn’t matter how you get there.
The instructor I had been learning from (the one who gave me this song to play in the first place) also did not dwell on using your strumming hand as a metronome. He never explicitly described his philosophy on it to me but he’s another whose playing style doesn’t follow that religiously (fingerstyle jazz/blues background). I recall a couple of times when I pressed him about how to strum different songs he gave me and he was really reluctant about that sort of thing.
I get why Justin promotes strumming this way. It’s a reliable way to teach people to find/count the rhythm. And rhythm is challenging. Yes, a lot of people do it this way. But a lot of people also do it differently. I find I do some of both. I do not hold with being rigid about it because I see the exceptions.
