The House of the Rising Sun Lesson

Mike-

Hello! Thanks for the great lesson on House of the Rising Sun. When I started playing four plus years ago I was not able to arpeggiate the chords correctly but your lessons showed me how. I may not be perfect doing it and may slip a few times during the course of the song but now have this skill set I did not have when started playing.

Two questions come to mind.
1. When you're arpeggiating the chords it looks like your more less "gliding" over the strings on the way down towards the high e string. It looks more like picking the strings on the way backup, am I correct?? The tempo is too quick to individually pick that 16th note on the way down?

2. When playing the dynamic verse portions of the song, are you toning down the volume because the strumming greatly increases the volume and may take over another musician performing alongside you? Seems to be big volume differences between the arpeggiated chords and the ones strummed for the dynamic climax.

Just want some clarification on the above. I plan on playing this one at one of our Saturday night guitar Meetups in Philadelphia. I will play this on my Fender Strat with a friend singing/playing the acoustic and a backing track I found that only includes a bass, drums and keyboards.

Look forward to your response.

Thanks!

Tony

Hey Tony! Great questions...

1. Yes I am doing more of a rake for those quicker arpeggiations that go up the strings, just because I find it's easier and smoother sounding for me than picking each note at that tempo. However, I encourage you to experiment and see what picking approach works best for you. You may find you can comfortably pick each note going up the strings at that tempo, and if so, go for it!

2. I exaggerated the strumming dynamics throughout the tune so it was clear where the lower dynamics are in relation to the higher dynamics. If you play this song with other musicians, you'll need to run through it and feel out how to play the dynamics as a unit. Of course, you won't want to drown out the vocalist, so I suggest setting up your amp volume by strumming your highest dynamic and making sure the vocals are still loud and clear.

Hope this helps, let me know how it goes!
Mike

Mike-

Thanks for the quick response, I never expected your answers that fast! Going towards the high e string I feel "raking" over is easier for me because of that 16th note. I always come back up the other direction picking each note.

Will make the necessary volume check adjustments before playing as you suggested. Our sound man did that last night with our GuitarMeetup.

Look forward to your other lessons.

Have a great one!

Tony

Have to say that is a good way to teach the song. I played this song back in the 60's when it actually came out, but I haven't picked up a guitar in 48 years. Whipped right through fundamentals 1 in 5 days and now slowing down to focus on Fundamentals 2 and then move on to Blues. Having said that, I used to play this with the A minor then e and then e7th. Is that wrong? Also on your strumming, I just arpeggiate down from fifth string down and then three up for all the chords as part of the intro, and then strum the rest of the song. Great lesson, thanks for the reminder from an old timer. I am 64 in March. Watched your entire lesson as a preview and then will work on mastering it tomorrow. Hopefully a couple hours and I'll have it down again. Thanks Mike!!

Hey Johnv!

The E7 will definitely work for this song. For this tutorial, I taught the guitar part as it is heard on the original recording, and based on that, the guitar doesn't actually use that E7 (you hear the E7 sound in the organ part).

But by all means, going from E to E7 in the final bar of the progression does work well and sound good.

Keep pickin'!
Mike

Mike, John-

Everything I have heard over the years was the Am, C, D, F, Am progression along with the E. But I guess everyone has their own version.

Tony