Month 2, Lesson 4: Old MacDonald – Rhythm Chords – Text
Source: Guitar Lessons – Rhythm Chords
Old MacDonald – Rhythm Chords – Text
This week we are going to go back and visit one of our songs from last month – Old MacDonald. By now you should know this song quite well. After all you play it a couple of times every day don’t you? 
If you don’t play it every day, you should. You don’t want to forget it after all that hard work of learning it.
About This Lesson:
We are going to try something completely different for this weeks lesson. We are going to dive into the chords and rhythm playing for songs. This is also known as accompaniment or the supporting role to the lead notes.
When you first begin guitar, chords appear to be the hardest issue to deal with. You will find that as your fingers get stronger, the chords will become much easier to play and soon chords will not be that big of a “mountain” for you to climb.
Learning Points:
Play Each Chord Clearly:
Take care to place each finger directly on the string, keeping the finger upright and directly behind the fret, as this is the easiest place to press down the string to produce a clear note.
Relate Each Chord To The Lead Notes In The Score:
In this weeks tab and notation, I have combined the lead notes and the score notes together in the same PDF file. This way you can see exactly how the chords relate to the melody.
Make Your Chord Transitions Smoothly:
Try not to have a “break” in the rhythm, as soon as you are done with the first chord, place your fingers on the second chord and so on. This means that you have to memorize the finger positions for each chord. Once you learn a few of them they will become much easier to memorize.
Also, when placing your fingers from one chord to the next, try to make the minimum left hand finger movements that you can. Try to see similar patterns within chord fingerings and move all of your fingers in one motion.
About the Tab Notes:
Not much to say on this it is pretty clearly marked.
Articles You Should Read:
How To Play Chords Efficiently: Get acquainted with this technique and learn how to do it.
How to Hold the Guitar Pick: This will be really important with the down up strokes and attaining speed.
Alternating Bass Chord Patterns: This is the technique that is used for playing the rhythm on this song.
Chords in the Key of C Major and A Minor. Notice that we use the chords from this key, with the exception of one chord – that one is the Fminor. Sorry I slipped this one in on you, but it really makes a difference in this melody.
Music Theory You Should Know:
Music Staff
Measure
TAB
Half Notes
Whole Notes
Treble Clef
TAB Staff
Goals:
Your goal at the end of this weeks lesson is of course to be able to play chords. Now since this is only your first week of playing them, I would expect that they will be sounding pretty rough even after playing them a full week.
Goal #1:
Be able to play all of the chord forms. Memorize the chords. This is the ultimate must do. If someone says to you play a C chord, you have to immediately pull that out of your memory and be able to play it.
Goal #2:
Be sure to memorize each family of chords together. What I mean is this: Key of C = C, F, G7. Relative Key of A Minor = Am, Dm, and E7. Know this for sure. Work constantly on the transitions between all of these chords.
Goal #3:
The alternating bass is a new thing for you and I would expect you not to play it perfectly by the end of the week. Don’t worry about this! We will be doing a LOT more of this and you will get it – it comes slowly at first.
Goal #4:
Have fun with these chords. Try not to look at this as being work. Experiment around a bit with strumming different ways. Take a looks on YouTube and find musicians playing and try and see how they strum their guitars. Try to copy them. Sure it may sound terrible at first, but all of a sudden you will strike upon something that sound really cool. Develop it and refine it to be your own style.
What You Should Practice This Week:
This Guitar Pro file of Old MacDonald is much different than the first Old MacDonald. I have added another track to the file. The first track is called the Lead Guitar, which contains all the original notes from the original lesson.
The Second Track contains the Rhythm Track and contains all of the Alternating Bass and Chords for the song. Each chord pattern is shown within the notation, right above each measure. Some music will show this and some music will only give you the name of the chord without the diagram.
See our How To Practice article:
If you are having trouble with your practice techniques, or can’t seem to get “in the groove”, review the article on How to Practice and this will help you develop a consistent practice method.
Help Us Out:
Lastly and most importantly, give us feedback, either good or bad. We want to improve this site and we want kids to learn how to play the guitar. If you have suggestions for us, leave a comment. If you appreciate these lessons, leave a comment on that too.
Songs in Downloadable Format:
If you have difficulty reading this score information, we have this score information available free of charge for you with an instant electronic download. Just click on the song title below and you will be taken to our secure server site. You will get a PDF file of the above score complete with the Tab Notes. Be sure to download Adobe Acrobat Reader v6.0 or above. This version will allow you to turn the Tab Layer on or off.
Also you will get the Guitar Pro file. You can download Guitar Pro and get a free trial so you can play along with this song in real time on your computer. If you upgrade to the full version of the song you will have a lot more features available to you.
Guitar Pro File
Download
PDF File
Download
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