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Hey there, I'm Tomas. We're gonna do the opening lick to Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison. Now
there's several different ways to play this. The original
is actually doing on the top two strings. I think it's something like this.
You can see what the problem is there on the acoustic guitar with no cutaway. I'd run out of
fresh and with the cutaway it's still kind of difficult so I've rearranged it a little bit.
All I've done is taken that top note and moved it down to another string so we end up with
this --- sounds pretty good and the nice thing is instead of having to move all the way up here
for the next half of the lick we just move over in other words one string higher and no problem with
hitting the end of the guitar neck. So let's go ahead and break it down to three parts.
The first is that first lick. We're gonna start here on the ninth fret fourth string
second finger. Skip a string and then the first finger goes on the eighth fret second string
that's the two notes together. Now I'm picking them with a pick
and my second finger. You could play this with just your thumb and your finger if I'm in first
finger or second but I like the sound of the pick and I'm gonna strum after this
with the rest of the song. By the way, I did make a whole video on the strumming and the
chords in the song and I'll put a link to that at the end so here we go.
We've got the second finger first finger now we move the second finger up one fret
and put down the third finger on that same fret on the second string.
From there we go two more frets and then back down and back down to where we started so let's
go through that one more time. Second finger on the ninth fret fourth string,
first finger on the second string eighth fret. Yeah I got it. Okay now go ahead and play those
two notes together in whatever way works for you. I’m gonna use the pick and my second finger. Okay
now let's go ahead and move that thing up one fret and the second finger and we put
the third finger down. It's on the same fret and the second string so here's the two notes.
Let's try that again back to where we started, second finger ninth fret.
Move up one fret with the second finger. Put the third finger down.
Okay, sounds okay. Let's go up two more frets now 1 2 and we'll get these two notes
together like that, okay? All three together starting here. Ready, play. Move up one more.
Did you get it? Try one more time with me. Come on. Ready, get your fingers ready. Go. One fret,
two frets back down now two frets and back down. I'm talking the
second finger one fret first finger comes back so a little faster it's --
Wanna try that with me? I'll go a little slower. Ready, hit it.
That's the rhythm. Do it again. Ready, go.
Okay so that's enough for you to practice that. If you don't already have it
but we're going on to the second part because the second part is exactly like the first, right?
But now move everything over one string so the second finger instead of the fourth string is
the third string and the first finger is on the first string, same frets nine and eight.
Convenient, huh just move everything over so
let's go ahead and try that. Start where we were. Okay, fourth fret and second fret. Now
move over second finger one string first finger one string so something like that.
Let's try it from here together up one fret just like we did before so sound like that up two frets
back down two and then back to where we started. And again ready go go go
go and start where we start. Now we'll put some rhythm to it. Sounds like this.
Okay, ready try it. Go. Again. Come on. Catch off guard. Ready, hit it.
Again. Hit it.
Okay. Let's try the two together. Let's do one each. I'll go a little slower. Ready, hit it.
Move over to the first string.
Let's go back.
Okay how was it? Need some work huh that's okay.
Let's do that last lick and then we'll put it all together. The last part sounds like this --
So I'm playing the third string and the second string. I've got my first finger
kind of barring over that seventh fret on the third and second strings
and then I got my pinky playing the what's that the tenth fret on the second string so it sounds
like these two notes that's the first finger and the pinky's playing that tenth fret right there.
Together it doesn't sound like great by itself but it works in the song of course.
A little bit of a kind of tension almost so I'm barring. You don't have to. You can just jump
because we're going to go back to first finger. We're going to end up on that
seventh fret second string but I'm barring so I don't have to move the finger. You choose
whichever is best for you. So now I'm going to play both of those notes together. Go back on
the second string to the seventh fret. See I don't have to move my finger because I'm barring it then
the eighth fret second finger and then back to the pinky where we start at tenth fret. Together it's
yeah it sounds better when you play it faster.
Okay let's do it slow together now. Let's start with that seventh fret pinky on the tenth fret.
Play those two notes. Go. Now just on the second string one note seventh fret, eighth fret and
tenth fret again. Those are the notes. Do it one more time. Go. Seventh fret, eighth fret
and tenth fret. Let's try it with a little rhythm, Here's going to sound like. I'll go slow.
That was kind of right. Let's try it again. Ready, go go.
Let me do it a little faster. It kind of sounds weird slow.
What do you think? Try it with me. One two ready, hit it. Again.
We'll do two in a row. Again, together. Ready, go.
Okay I'll slow it down a little bit. Here we go 1 2 ready, go. Again, go. Again. One more time.
Okay so let's try putting it together. Don't worry I'm not expecting you to have everything perfect
the first time around but I'm kind of teaching you a way to break it down and put it back together
as well and this is the kind of thing I do for myself when I'm learning a new lick or a song.
So let's start off with the first lick. We're going to play that first leg goes over to the
next strings and then back just like we did in the beginning and then that last part. Okay
so we'll do it nice and slow. Ready, get your fingers. Ready first finger
that's the eighth fret second finger on the fourth string ninth fret, right? Ready, hit it.
Move up, up two, back two and back where we start over to the first and third strings. Go.
I'm being easy on the rhythm there. Don't worry about it now. Go. Back to the four and two.
Now we'll go to that last lick. I'm barring across the seventh fret pinky on the ten. Go.
We're playing the second and third strings. Go.
Let's do it again. I'm gonna start easing into the
correct rhythm now - 1 2 get the fingers ready three, go.
How was that? Okay, if you didn't get perfect you're like most people. Let me do it
by myself for a second. I want to get the rhythm right. Let's go.
Okay, try that with me. Ready, go. Move over, back,
ending lick. Again. Back to where we were. Go.
Over, back and last lick and it goes from here into strumming
and so on. Okay it's time to go practice.
Hey, that was fun. If you'd like to learn the chords and the strumming pattern,
I made a separate video where I go through that step by step
and you can put it all together. I'll put a link to that right here.