Play-along · 12 Popular Chord Progressions for Guitar

04 The Emotional One

vi – IV – I – V · Key of G major / E minor

80 BPM
Sound

The strum · The folk strum
1
&
2
&
3
&
4
&

The pattern from progression 02. Let the last strum of each bar ring into the next chord.

Your hand swings down on every number and up on every “&”. Blank = the swing misses the strings.

The chart
Em
C
G
D

Four beats per box. It loops until you stop it.

Em
vi
12345 23 EADGBe
C
IV
12345 × 321 EADGBe
G
I
12345 213 EADGBe
D
V
12345 ×× 132 EADGBe

How to practise with it

  1. Listen first. Press Play and let it go round twice without touching the guitar. Watch the cursor and hear where the strums land.
  2. Strum without chords. Rest your fretting hand lightly across the strings and strum along to the muted “chk”. That gets the rhythm into your hand before the chord changes join in.
  3. Play along. Now add the chords. If a change is late, keep strumming anyway and catch the next one.
  4. Switch to Click only. Once you can keep up, turn the guitar off and play it yourself against the click. Then nudge the tempo up 5 BPM at a time.
  5. Level up. When the basic version feels easy, switch to Level up at the top of the player for the variation from the book, and start again from step 1.

Tip: press the space bar to start and stop.