Help me fellas I'm feelin' kind-a weak
The way I'm livin' just ain't right I need somebody to watch over me
All my blue moon nights
I’m gonna show you how to play Blue Moon Nights on guitar. This is a John Fogerty song
kind of an upbeat fun song with just three chords. We've got an E chord, an A chord and
a B7 chord that's it. Now I'm going to go through these chords step by step but if you
already know them you're welcome to go ahead and just skip to another section then I'm
going to go through what I'll call a practice walkthrough just to show you where the chords
fit with the words. This is something that I usually do when I'm learning a song as well.
It's a good practice to get into. And again if this is easy for you can always skip to
another section then we'll do some strumming and finally I'll do a complete playthrough
of the song that you can play along with me with the lyrics on the screen.
Let's do this.
Three chords, we'll start with the E chord then the A chord and the B7. These are all
in the key of E by the way and they're probably the most important chords or at least the
most functional chords in the key of E. I'll start with the E chord and I'll finger it
like this. By the way at any time, if you know a different fingering that you're comfortable
with feel free to use that. I've got first finger on the third string first fret and
my second and third finger together on the fifth string and the fourth string second
frets. The low E is the bass note and I'll show you why that's important later when we
do the strumming.
Next comes the A, here's the way I like to finger the A. I use my first finger to cover
two strings the fourth and the third and the second finger to cover the second string all
on the second fret. A lot of people make the A with three fingers like this, that's perfectly
fine. And actually if you're using some they use the pinky and second, third pinky because
it fits better than the first, second and third. Perfect. Oh and by the way the bass
notes fifth string that's an A note and finally the B7. We're going to finger it like this,
that's pretty standard I don't know another way to finger it. It's second finger on the
second fret that's the fifth string then I've got the first finger on the first fret of
the fourth string. The third string third finger second fret and then I skip a string
that's an open second string B string and then the first string the high E I've got
the pinky on the second fret. Base notes that fifth string B note. Now if any of these chords
are new for you, you might want to go ahead and practice them a little bit and I’m going
to go on to a walkthrough which will match up the chords with the words.
In this section, we're just going to play through the chords very easily just straight
down strums and match them up with the words. Now I want you to follow along and don't try
to think too hard just follow along with what I'm doing and it'll help make sense as we
go along. Now sometimes you'll hear me play the same chord twice that's because when we
start strumming you do two strums on that chord so each one strum down is representing
later on one full strum. Don't worry too much about that just follow along.
Starting on the E chord. Go. E, one strum
Help me fellas to A feeling kind of E and strum again.
The way I'm living to eat and going to B7 twice here. We're gonna follow that same pattern
again E. I need somebody to watch over E. Again to A oh my B7 and going to E and one
more time and that's the entire first verse.
Let's do that one more time starting on the E chord. Ready, follow along. Go. Help me
fellas I'm feeling kind of weak, strum twice here. Going to A now. The way I'm living E
just ain't B7. Again.
E. I need somebody to watch over me. Did you see the repeating pattern there? And
then A. Oh my blue moon nights and again.
Now that same chord pattern applies to the second verse exactly the same different words
so I'm not going to go over it again but I'm going to go on to the chorus a little bit
different. Starts on A, follow along with me again.
Heaven only twice knows I don't eat two times again wanna be B7 now two times just a fool
and E twice passing through, same progression. Again. A won't you send me an angel to walk
with me B7 twice on my blue moon and E nights
So I just noticed every chord is two strums that means two full measures or strumming
patterns later on. Let's do it again. Come on. Start with the A chord. We got this. Ready,
go.
Heaven only knows and E I don't wanna be B7 twice
Just a fool E twice passin’ through A won't you send me an angel to walk with
me and B7 Oh my blue moon E nights.
So now the song goes on to another verse the third verse and then the same chorus again.
Again the verse is the same as the first and second and the chord progression is the same
on the chorus so I'm gonna stop there and we'll go on now to the strumming pattern.
This is a fairly simple strumming pattern but there's some subtleties that you'll want
to pay attention to if you really want to sound good. To start with the basic motion
is down, down, up, down, up, down, up that's four beats one, two and three and four and.
Now if you play that strum exactly like that it sounds like this -
I was playing everything exactly even and my pick was just going straight down and straight
up a little wobble so it didn't catch in the strings or sound really rough but you'll notice
when I was strumming earlier it sounded a little different. Here's that original strum
again
What I'm doing is I'm alternating where I hit on the strings so instead of all the strings
straight down all the strings straight up I start off by hitting the low I’m hitting
the bass note but I'm not aiming for just one note I'm hanging the bass note so to speak
maybe the first, the sixth and fifth strings doesn't matter so much. It's just lower as
opposed to the whole set of strings and then I'll alternate that with the high so that's
beat one, one and then two and is on the high end of the strings. Again not just the high
string but maybe the top three or four strings so it sounds like this together bass one two
and. We use and for the second half of the beat when I go down up and one beat so try
that with me that much. Ready, go. Base down up and I'm hitting high, low, high, high.
That's the first half of that strum then the second half is low, high, high so that's three
and four and, just try that with me and we'll put it together. Don't worry about it. Start
with the base three high, high, down and high up. Now let's do that very slowly all together
and it takes a while but once you get it kind of clicks in and your hand just goes there.
Ready start with a low and it'll be one. I'll call out low and high instead of one two three
four.
Here we go. Start with low, low, high, high, low, high, up, high, high and again. Ready,
go. Low, high, high, low, high, high, high. Now let's do it again. I'll call it the number
so you can see how it fits. Ready, go - one two and three and four and again low, high,
high, low, high, high. Again. Again.
Okay now of course you're going to practice it and I want to encourage you not to worry
about getting it perfect just aiming that direction. As a matter of fact that's not
the absolute one way to do it. What I'm doing is creating motion by moving around the pick
on the strings but that doesn't have to be the exact strum pattern that I'm using. In
fact if you really watch me playing this, I'm not doing the exact same strum pattern
throughout the song. Nobody does. What we do is we play generally that pattern but then
we alternate a little bit and slowly and sometimes we'll go down up several times and we'll go
down twice in a row.
Don't worry about it, just aim that direction and keep practicing so that your thumb doesn't
sound like this. It sounds more alive and organic. Okay if you followed me this far,
you're ready to try playing through the whole song.
Help me fellas I'm feelin' kind-a weak
The way I'm livin' just ain't right I need somebody t' watch over me
All my blue moon nights
I want a girl to take me by the hand Follow me right down the line
Hold me gently while we dance All my blue moon nights
Heaven only knows I don’t want to be Just a fool, passin’ through
Won’t you send me an angel to walk with me
All my blue moon nights
Help me fellas, It’s gettin’ kind-a late Runnin’ out of precious time
She might pass me while I waste All my blue moon nights
Heaven only knows I don’t want to be Just a fool, passin’ through
Wont you send me an angel to walk with me All my blue moon nights
All my blue moon nights All my blue moon nights
Well that's it for now. Thanks for hanging out with me and I hope you have as much fun
as I did. Hey listen if you're not happy with your progress on your guitar come join me
in Real Guitar Success that's realguitarsuccess.com. I'll put a link in the description or you
go directly to the website. We'll have a great time learning and playing guitar together.
Come on over and give it a shot.