I canāt seem to find if Justin has this in his lessons. Letās say Come As You Are, you play the Verse and then the Chorus. The Verse is the riff we all know. The Chorus is strumming. And then you return to the Verse. I feel like the timing is different when I play it. Any advice?
1 Like
Come As You Are by Nirvana | JustinGuitar.com
I just had a look at Justinās lesson. Looks like a fairly old one, if he did it today Iām sure he would film it a bit differently. The demo he does at the start of the video is a little bit different from the rhythm he teaches later in the lesson. He teaches to do it with the old faithful pattern. In the demo Iām fairly sure heās doing a more advanced 2 bar rhythm pattern, something like 1 bar of 16th note down strumming and then 1 bar of old faithful.
In answer to your question the tempo will be the same throughout, I canāt think of a song where that would change. The rhythm pattern will be different for verse and chorus, that is very often the case in most songs.
Iām learning āCome as you areā as itās on our list of potential songs for the next Jam Night.
Iām fairly confident the tempo doesnāt change between verse and chorus.
My suggestions are:
- Play to a metronome or (maybe a drum machine)
- Separate the instruments into stems and either mute or turn down the guitar part. There are programs such as Moises that allow you to do this.
- Create a loop of the verse (a single one) and chorus only playing the chords in each. In order to get the timing right you probably should record this to a metronome. Then practice the transitions over that loop.
There are other alternatives if you are doing it in a band situation. E.g. Iāve asked the bass player to do the riff as the chances of me playing the riff well whilst singing are very low. So Iāll just sing and play chords the whole way through other than in the instrumental.
I hope this gives you some ideas.
2 Likes
My advice is to not treat it / think of it as a transition. You have to stay in the same groove / rhythm / timing.
It might help to do some muted strumming as you go between the strumming and the riff.
Yeah something is lost in translation. I donāt have a problem with Seven Nation Army, Paranoid, even when I was trying out Rebel, Rebel. I have to think about this some more.
Wish You Were Here is on my current Grade 1 song list. Itās almost memorized. I have no problem with the intro.
There is something about Come As You Are that is tripping me up.
For some background, I practiced 2 years and didnāt get very far, thought I had Come As You Are down, then tried to follow the video. I crashed and burned at this spot. That brought me to this course 5 months ago. Completed Grade 1 except still trying to memorize my 5 songs. Holding my training at Grade 2 Module 9. I wonāt go forward until I remember the 5 easily.
So, because things are going pretty well, I decided to take another look at my nemesis, Come As You Are. I can play the rhythm of Paranoid at speed with the video, so this confuses me. I guess I gotta just really sit down, break this particular ātransitionsā apart and practice just those parts.
1 Like
Those are 5 solid and cool songs. Great choices IMO. Keep working at it, you will get it, I bet you are closer than you think.
If you are feeling uber discouraged dont forget about Mollys Lips. Thats a nice easy super high octane Nirvana song that sounds way cool and is super punk.
Mollyās Lips was my first electric guitar song I played with a drummer and in front of people.
Keep up the good work Frank 
Ontime
1 Like
Hi Frank,
The tempo doesnāt change between the sections. It can be tricky transitioning between riffs and chords though.
Can you go from the verse into the chorus ok? Is the transition going from the chorus back to the verse more difficult? If so, it might be because the riff doesnāt start on beat 1.
The riff starts on the āandā of beat 3. That means you need to drop out of the chord strumming early in the last bar of the chorus so you can start the riff on the correct beat.
2 Likes
Ok, this is important. Thanks. I created my own leadsheet/tab for the song, but I didnāt think about this.
2 Likes