Hi I would like some advice about string muting while learning Wonderwall by Oasis. While playing the chord progression Em7-G-Dsus4-A7sus4, I am trying to decide whether I should move my thumb up to mute the low E string for the D and A chords, or maybe just the A since it’s pretty easy to avoid the low E when playing the D chord.
I have heard from some other instructors/players that I should not use my thumb to mute the low E, but instead practice my picking accuracy so that I don’t hit it. Others (including Justin I think) state that it’s OK to use the thumb to mute in this way, but only after building up the muscle/strength between your thumb and 1st finger. I have done this so the strength is not an issue for me.
Any suggestions, or is this just a matter of preference? I have learned this part of the song pretty well and have not been muting the low E, and it sounds pretty good, so maybe I shouldn’t worry about it. On the other hand maybe getting into the habit of muting low E with my thumb would be a good idea. Any feedback is appreciated.
Thanks @jkahn. I checked out info you posted about your gear and I also have an fairly old, relatively inexpensive Yamaha acoustic. It’s an FG-400A, year is around 1987 I think. It’s my only guitar. I like it but maybe I’ll get a new one someday.
If you like it, and it plays well, great! I actually just restrung a similar one to yours (late 80s or early 90s FG4xx) for my niece. It was my mother in laws but had sat in a wardrobe for the last 20 years or so. Sounded pretty good.
Thank you Richard for leaving the strumming pattern, but I am wondering if the only place to find it is in his songbook as he mentioned or just following his video which is what I did because It isn’t anywhere else as far as I can see. I started the free trial app but when he lists the chords it isn’t the same as in the video. on the app its simple C or D or G or whatever. Do you understand me?
Why do you think that is? Do you have the app?
I was playing Wonderwall through the app, on there C Chord appears as a regular C open chord. The same happens to the A Chord.
Are these mistakes? Aren’t the correct chords A7sus4 and Cadd9?
Welcome to the forum Rodrigo.
You are correct or as Justin likes to call them the Stuck 3 4 chords. If you’d like to learn the proper way to play it Justin has a lessen on his website. the link is in the first post
Wow, I remember when I started learning that song in grade 2, my pinky was hurting so bad and my fingers were struggling to flex for the sus chords.
Now, a year later, I go back by accident to that song and it’s like night and day. My pinky is hurting just a little bit but I’ve been playing the song for almost 2 hours haha.
Justin names this chord: “D add11/F#”. He describes it as a transition chord when moving between G and Em.
You will find more information in his module 8 lession: https://www.justinguitar.com/guitar-lessons/the-stuck-3-4-chords-b2-801, and he explicitly mentiones it’s usage in Wonderwall.
Thanks for reply. I am not native speaker and in this part were too many informations for me. I probably did not catch it. Thanks for fast response so I can finish my traning list.
Personally with strumming it really helps me to hear the strumming pattern.
Justin goes through the strumming pattern for Wonderwall at a rip. At least for me. Now that I’ve got it memorized, I’m sharing videos counting out the strumming pattern at different speeds.
Caveat - I was not using a metronome and I do speed up in almost every instance.
That’s something I’ll need to work on now that I’m aware of it.
However, it gives those wishing to learn this rather complex strumming pattern something to work with at a speed they may be able to follow based on their proficiency. And remember - I’m just a Grade 2 Mod 8 type of guy.
I have three original videos and two videos which are extended cuts. Hopefully this helps others get a grip on the strumming pattern. I’ve included a visual of the strumming pattern as well. Have fun!
For anyone who finds the explanation of the rhythm guitar from Justin also too fast, you can of course also adjust the playback speed in the video settings (bottom right) from slightly slower to excruciatingly slow… (That function button has really made guitar life easier at times…
Also known as the ‘Drunk Justin button’
Greetings,Rogier
Thanks for the tip. The issue I experienced as well is that you have to find Justin performing the strumming pattern in the video. Once you do you have one shot playing the video which is relatively short. In the case of Justin’s full demo of both patterns, the video plays from 12:15 to 12:39 or 24 seconds. Then you need to stop, reacquire the beginning of the strumming pattern with your mouse, then play through it again - basically interrupting the flow of the pattern.
With the Youtube based videos you don’t have the option of bounding a video segment from one time stamp to another time stamp and then placing it in a loop.
That’s one of the reasons I’m a fan of tools such as Soundslice which allow you to do just that with video and tabs displayed at the same time - that is bound one segment of a song and play it over and over again. Repetition is my friend.
So to address that issue I downloaded the video, cut out the full two part strumming section, and spliced it together into a 1 minute 36 second video. I could play that segment using VLC and allow it to loop which allowed me to play along - for as long as I wanted - and at the playback speed that I could set into VLC. Then I broke my practice of the strumming pattern down into 5 minute practice sessions…and I had it memorized by the end of the day.
So using that approach, it took me a very short period of time to memorize the complex pattern and gain some muscle memory playing it.
All I’m doing here is addressing a problem that I encountered. If I’m having that problem, then other newbies and beginning-intermediate players are as well. All I’ve done here is offer a solution that worked for me personally.
If a more advanced player somehow thinks that is unnecessary and that all a newbie and less advanced player needs is a printed copy of the pattern with no audio cues? I’d suggest developing a Nitsuj mind. We (newer players) struggle and those like myself need all the audio and visual clues that we can find.
And repetition is our friend.
I’m sharing my own struggle and providing one way to overcome that struggle with the full Wonderwall pattern played as bounded video of just the strumming pattern and nothing else.
Hopefully newer players like myself will find this useful.
Thank you for this Richard I think that one of the problems with the video and being able to get this strumming pattern correct is that Justin actually says one thing initially and then demonstrated it a little bit differently so it’s confusing. so thank you for clarifying. I really struggled as well and my playing is intermediate. I don’t usually have a hard time with dictating these if I take my time but I eventually gave up and came here to see if there was something like this, so again thank you!
