I keep a close watch on this heart of mine
I keep my eyes
wide open all the time
I keep the ends out for
the tie that binds
because you're mine
I walk the line
I find very very easy to be true
I find myself alone when each day's through
Yes, I'll admit that
I'm a fool for you
Because you're mine
I walk the line
Okay, this is a very very simplified
version of "I walk the line" by Johnny Cash.
I'm Justin, in case you didn't know already.
Apologies to big Johnny Cash fans,
because I'm trying to get stick
it's just hard song to sing
So we're gonna look at few different versions
there's the actual one has bunch of other stuff going on
a lot more chords in the intro
single line things, key changes
But it's such a wonderful song to play for beginners
I've kinda simplified it down a little bit so that
you can play it just with an E, A and D chord
And even the strumming can be kept simple
or you can make it a little bit more fancier
Simple one first
We've got whole bar of E
followed by whole bar of A
meaning 4 strums
Back to E again
for 4 strums and back to A again
for 4 strums
and 4 on D
and back to A
because you're E
I walk the A
And that again
I keep an E watch
on this heart of A
I keep my E chord open all the A
I keep the D out
for the tie that A
Because you're E
I walk the A
So, that's it
You can play the tune like that
why it's such a great one
for beginner guitar players to play
nice simple chords
4 down strums per bar - job done!
But you can also take it a little bit further
So, as you progress a litte bit on the guitar
you might wanna try out
the "boom-chicka" strumming pattern
which is a classic kinda Johnny Cash thing going on.
And to do that you kinda hit
the first downstrum on the bass strings of the chord
and then down up on the thinnest strings
So bass down-up
Boom-chicka
So that one..... (counting)
As soon as you apply that to this pattern
I keep close watch on this heart of mine
I keep my eyes wide open all the time
I keep the ends out for the tie that binds
Because you're mine
I walk the line
So you can see straightaway it has
more of that kind of flavour if you want
Definitely not something that beginner guitar players
should be trying
so if you're on my Beginners Course
and you're doing the stage 1 still
just stick with that easy strumming
Worry about trying adding those
fancier strumming patterns later
It's really important
that you don't tryna
approach those things too earlier
Because it'll make your
it'll kinda mock up your strumming
because you'll be stopping for your chord changes
If you go like
You're teaching yourself that it's OK
to stop strumming and it's not
Once you started strumming
you gotta tryna keep that pattern going all the time
So that's there's such a strong emphasis on the course
on keeping the strumming real simple
on those early songs
until you kinda confident enough and fast enough
with your chord changes
that you can do a strumming pattern
and keep going.
So that's important.
And if you wanna..
If you're beyond that
you can do regular 4 bar strumming
you can do boom chicka thing
the other that you can do
is start alternating the bass part
the bass note that you play
so on the E
E
B
you play the 6th string
5th string
So you end up with that walking bass thing
If I just play without speaking
So you can hear it's suddenly a lot more complicated
going on when you get that alternating bass thing
but again that's kind of the end of the beginners course kind stuff
that you shouldn't...
Again, can't emphasize enoung
if you are beginner guitar player
just be really stoked with being
to get through the tune
and keep the strumming real simple
Make sure that you can get those
chord changes without having to stop your strumming
That should be the aim for the stage-1,2,3 guitar players
You know that's where you should be at
But it's such a great song
Apologies again to the Cash fans
for simplifying it it and trying to sing like him
but you know I'm tryna keep
Johnny Cash's music alive with the young generation
You should all go on and checkout his music
because it's the best
I'll see for another lesson
very soon, take care of yourselves!
Bye-bye!