Super fast chord changes needed for Country Roads?

@saj78 try this exercise. Fret the C chord, strum, Lift fingers but don’t move your hand off the neck then put your fingers back down all at once then strum the chord. When this is simple do the same thing but take your hand off the fret board then replace fingers all at once and strum the C chord again. When this become easy do the same but take your hand off the fret board and touch your knee then back to the C chord placing fingers down all at once.
It will be like doing a one minute change but with only one chord. Make sure you place all 3 fingers down at the same time with all three parts of the exercise.
Do this every day for a few minutes it may take a little time to get to right because you’ve been placing your finger down one at a time

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Thanks - this exercise helped combined with just more time playing the chord, and the exercise was also good as a way of measuring improvement so thanks for the advice.

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This was the first song I ever learned, as it had a lot of meaning in my life. I did it in the original A key though. It must have taken me nearly a year to actually be able to play and sing it comfortably. The big killer for me was the Fm (in key of A) but that lead me to playing barre chords a lot easier so time well spent. Then I had to learn it in the key of G.

Anyway, just slow it down as most have said, until you can keep the rhythm constant.

P.S. NOT for this song but for future reference some songs have chord changes and strumming patterns that are virtually impossible to get for mere mortals. It is OK and sounds fine to keep the strumming going but strum the open strings between the chords. Justin does go into this at some stage.

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Hello @saj78 and welcome to the Community.

Justin calls this Old Faithful. It is a great pattern to learn. It is in Grade 1 Module 4.

No.
That is wholly unnecessary.

That is going to develop into a bad habit. Please work to correct it. @stitch mentions air changes which is a great exercise for this type of issue. Also try this I wrote out for someone with fingers that lagged behind the others when going to a chord: Grade 1 - A & D chords - I'm taking it slower to make better progress ... with success - #6 by Richard_close2u

And, as others mention, always slow right down to the speed you can play CORRECTLY and get it right at that speed before moving up in tempo.

I hope that helps.

Cheers :smiley:

| Richard_close2u | JustinGuitar Official Guide, Approved Teacher & Moderator

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Richard @Richard_close2u

I think the confusion is that the app gives it as 166 bpm, and it has the strumming pattern as OF


Michael

CC Sajid @saj78

so in this conversation: Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver Lesson - #10 by Richard_close2u
What is going on here? so much conflicting information. is it 160 or 80? because I counted it to be around 80-84, but other people are saying its 160, and that I must have been counting only beat 1 and 3, because those are the accented beats. I thought this might be the case as well.

A Google search on “double-time in music” delivers the following (among others, of course!):
Columbia Music of Jazz Studies - double-time

So we were both counting right? I don’t fully understand, I guess it is kind of both times?

I listened to the original and tapped along in Justin’s BPM tool, and I got c. 84 BPM.

Just listen to the song and check how you bob your head to the rhythm. The 160 BPM is nonsense IMO.

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Ok, thank you, very helpful. I love straight answers :grin: :wink:
the original is the one I listen to, it does seem like 84. (strumming at 160 feels and looks pretty fast)

I didn’t mean to be dismissive of other opinions. I think others who say it’s 160 BPM count the “upstrums” (or where they would fall) as a separate beat, thus doubling the tempo.

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If you have a paid subscription to PMT then in


Richard @Richard_close2u explained in a very simple way the difference to half, regular and double time in a response to my question
Michael

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@Kate_South

I looked back at the post of mine you quoted and I can see your confision.
I’m really sorry.
Part of the paragraph within what looks like my writing is a quote in the original topic post by @saj78. Somehow I failed to put that into a quote box.
I have now corrected my post above.
It now reads as …

yes, I realized…and I guess that would work, but to my mind it makes me go :face_with_spiral_eyes: :rofl:

Hi @Kate_South ,

When I play Country Roads I like to give it a bit more of a ballad feel & therefore slow it down to about 68 BPM… try it, it works! Have fun!!!

Tod

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Hi @Richard_close2u ,

If I look at Justin’s song lesson, when he’s demo’ing the song, he’s clearly his playing his down strums at around 160 down strums per minute. So, if you consider this 8th note strumming, then I would call the tempo 160 bpm. However, I could consider this 16th note strumming, in which case the tempo would be 80 bpm.

FWIW, Justin seems to describe the strumming as an 8th note pattern. This is evident also when he gives the number of measures for each chord.

Am I wrong then when I say there is ambiguity in the specified bpm?

@Jozsef, as for head-bobbing, I think that is subjective.

As an example: in the chorus, if I count the lyrics like this (which is what comes naturally to me):

Coun-    try    roads .....
1        2      3             4          1       2       3      4
Take     me     home   ....
1        2      3             4          etc. 

This would be 160 bpm. It sounds like you might count it like this:

Coun-    try    roads .....
1        +      2             +          1       +       2      +
Take     me     home   ....
1        +      2             +          etc. 

i.e. putting “try” and “me” on the upstrums. Then it would be considered a tempo of 80 bpm. (As I mentioned above, though, Justin is playing down strums on “try” and “me”.)

EDIT: Btw, if you look at John Denver performing this live, he is clearly hitting his down strums at around 160 per minute (or thumb plucks, when he plays it fingerstyle).

Maybe I’m being too nerdy about this, but I feel like saying “this is definitely played at 80 bpm” isn’t quite right.

I’m adding to the confusion by saying, that this song is at 166 bpm in the app.
I remember, I always turned down the speed because I didn’t like given tempo and thought it was double time.
I now play it on my own tempo…

I found a live version and the audience doesn’t seem to be clapping at 160 BPM. I still think that which some people consider to be 160 BPM is due to the 8th/16th notes played on the guitar. But all instruments in a song don’t have to play in the same tempo (i.e. playing only quarter notes, only 8th notes, etc.). Maybe the official sheet music of the song (if there is any) would set things right.

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Surely the bpm of a song remains a constant. You can choose strum slowly or quickly ie. to play 4 strums or 8 or 16, but the bpm is still the same.

I think I have come to see the issue … an aha moment that I should have had before now. My apologies. I can’t recall but it seems I probably didn’t look over at Justin’s lesson. Justin’s lesson gives two bars per chord.

You can view the song as one bar per chord at approximately 80bpm or two bars per chord at approximately 160bpm.
The doubling / halving makes them equal in sound.

I have created two audio tracks of the 1st verse. They will sound almost identical - but listen to the drums. Both play kick - snare - kick - snare as quarter beats. But because of the difference in bar-count you will hear the difference there.

The notation I am showing in each example is for the melody - not guitar tab. It shows the count for the lyric also.

TMHCR @ 160 bpm

TMHCR @ 80 bpm


@jjw

Notice that you will need to adjust how you think of the count for the lyric.
The split word ‘Country’ that begins the chorus comes at the very end of the last bar of the verse. It does not begin at the 1st beat of the chorus. Beat 1 of the chorus is the lyric ‘roads’.

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