Warm Up Exercise

"Death By 1000 Cuts" Fingerstyle Walkdown Exercise (Key of C)

Lesson #264

Video lesson

Get the free PDF (2 pages)

  • I'm excited to offer the print-friendly PDF chord sheet for this song for free! I have a few others available for free as well.
  • If you enjoy this and want access to my entire library of 200+ PDF chord sheets, please consider supporting me on Patreon.com ($3/month, cancel anytime).
Get the free PDF

If you're a Patreon supporter, click here to get this PDF

Editor’s notes

In this lesson I’ll show you a fun fingerstyle exercise based on a C-major walkdown progression. Using 2 different arrangements, I’ll teach how you can use common chords in the key of C to capture the sound of a descending bass line throughout an 8-measure progression. This is inspired by the guitar work heard in Taylor Swift’s song “Death by 1000 Cuts” – though you’ll need a capo 4th fret to play along with her song (using the tabs I show).

Video timestamps:

The song this exercise is based on

“Death by Thousand Cuts” by Taylor Swift. Again, you’ll need to add a capo on the 4th fret to play along with her version. The guitar starts 11 seconds in.

Enjoy my lessons? Buy me a beer!

If this and my other lessons have proven helpful to you, please consider making a one-time donation to my tip jar. Contributions of any amount help make this project possible (including the many, many hours I put into it).

You can also support me on Patreon. For only $3/month you'll get access to a print-friendly PDF of my notes for each new lesson (view free sample).

Thanks!

Subscribe to my YouTube channel

Be sure to never miss a lesson by subscribing on YouTube. I put out 2-3 new videos every week. These include full song lessons, as well as covers, practice tips, behind-the-scenes updates. Thanks!

Recent video lessons:

📝 Print-friendly PDFs now available for all new lessons I make, including all those listed below. Get a free sample »

Browse my all lessons

By lesson type

By song decade

By musical genre

By guitar technique

By musical key

By popular artist

← back to lesson list