Learn & Play Song: Steady She Goes

In this lesson we'll practice some more switching between the different subdivisions. Notice how this adds a new and exciting rhythmic element to our examples!

So we'll keep the basic chord structure really simple, so that we can put all of our focus on the subdivisions. We'll do 2 bars of E minor followed by 2 bars of A minor, and then that's going to repeat 3 times total.

The first time through we'll do our usual whole-notes. The second time through we'll do half notes. The third time through we'll do quarter notes, so one strum for each count. After the third time we'll end on a big E minor chord that we let ring.

Now let's try this together. I'll do the usual one-bar count-in and then we'll start the example. Feel free to just watch and listen before you start playing along, if you prefer.

Congrats on learning how to talk about and work on rhythm. It's a strange thing that you can't really really see, which may explain why so many people completely neglect to work on it. I say this all the time and I'll say it again, playing with good rhythm is one of the only shortcuts that exists in music. If you play with good rhythm you can break all kinds of rules and get away with it. And vice versa, if you play all the best notes in the world and don't use good rhythm it'll never sound truly great!

Instructor Anders Mouridsen
Tutorial:
Basic Rhythmic Subdivisions
Styles:
Any Style
Difficulty:
Learn & Play Song: Steady She Goes song notation
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Learn & Play Song: Steady She Goes By Anders Mouridsen

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Questions & Answers

3 months ago
Hello, Great content. Question, I have now watched the content through the first section of chapter two. I want to make sure that I am making the best use of my practice time when I am not watching the videos. I spend about an hour a day outside of watching the videos just practicing. I normally split the practice sessions into two 30 minute sessions since my fingers still hurt a bit. I normally do the following in my practice sessions after I warm up: 1- ten minutes of spider walk, 2- 10 minutes of trying to switch between the various chords I have learned thus far with the help of a metronome and the final 10 minutes having some fun with tabs like Nothing else matter by Metallica. So the question is, should I be incorporating anything else into my practice sessions?
Mike Olekshy 3 months ago

Hello - thanks so much for your question! Your practice routine sounds great! Keep at it! As you progress through the course, you'll learn more chords to add to your routine, as well as plenty of additional techniques that you'll want to incorporate into your practice sessions. Hope this helps!

1 year ago
how do you know which finger for each string?
Josh Workman 1 year ago

When learning open position scales, we generally have 1st finger on 1st fret, 2nd on 2nd, and 3rd on 3rd. This works for some chord shapes and then on some it doesn't. Probably the best answer is "Someone figured it out centuries ago and we all just learned it this way."