Warm Up Exercise

4-finger magic with E major

Lesson #253

Video lesson

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Editor’s notes

In this lesson I’ll show you one of my go-to warmup exercises from the past few years, which involves playing the E-major with the thinnest four strings – and adding flourish with your left pinky and ring finger. This takes an otherwise familiar & common chord, and mixes it up a bit: you’re getting a slight less full sound (from only playing 4 strings), but you benefit from having a few extra fingers to add meldoic flourish notes with. I’ll show it all to you: the chord shapes, the riff, the strumming, including in tab. I hope you enjoy.

Video timestamps:

0:00 Playthrough & overview
3:38 Chord shapes used
7:00 Chord progression & timing
7:48 Strumming pattern
8:33 4-string E-major riff
11:52 Full sequence w/ tab
12:24 Farewell

The Father John Misty song that inspired this

I should note, this is based on the background lead guitar part Father John Misty song “I’m Writing a Novel” – which is track 4 from his great album “Fear Fun”. The riff first comes in after he finishes the first verse – it’s subtle, but it’s there.

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