Month 3, Lesson 2: You Belong With Me – Lead Notes
Source: Guitar Lessons
You Belong With Me Lead Notes – Text
This week we will take on the portion of the Taylor Swift song, You Belong With Me. Hopefully because this is a very popular song, you can already sing it, or at least know how the song sounds or is supposed to sound. This will make the timing on this song a bit easier.
About This Lesson:
This lesson is all about timing, syncopation and your down-up pick strokes. The song will be quite hard to play correctly, at least at first it will, until you grow familiar with it anyway.
Learning Points:
Study The Timing First:
Look closely at the timing of this song, especially in the 4th and 6th measures. It gets pretty difficult in these areas, because there are quarter notes that are played on the upbeat and this throws of the timing.
This is partially what makes this song popular – the unique timing, which serve as “hooks” for the song. It catches your ear.
Down-Up Strokes:
Follow the rules of down and up strokes. Down strokes are always played on the down beat and up stroke notes are played on the up beat. The down beat is indicated by the numbers below the beat and the up beat is indicated by the “&” symbol. So 1 & 2 & would be played down, up down, up.
Watch your Repeats:
Repeats are used as kind of a shorthand in music. Repeats allow us to play identical passages more than one time, saving a lot of music space and reducing the complexity of the music. Play the first two measures, reach the first repeat and go back to the beginning and play once more. Then continue to play until you reach the repeat at the end and go back to the 3rd fret and play to the end once more. This make a totol of 20 measure you will play rather than 10
Play With The Capo On The 6th Fret:
This song is written in the Key of F# Major. This is not a very guitar friendly key as it does not allow hardly any open strings and all of the chords would be bar chords as a result of this key.
A common guitarists trick is to use a capo to play a song in a much more guitar-friendly key like C, G, D, A or even E.
If you place a Guitar Capo on the 6th fret and play this song in the key of C, you would actually play it in the “Real” Key of F# Major. We can verify this by counting our half steps from C to F# would be… C C# D D# E F F#. That would be (6) 1/2 steps, which would place the capo 6 frets higher.
About the Tab Notes:
Follow the timing written below the notes very carefully. Really watch it were there is a lot of syncopation, especially in the 4th and 6th frets. Also play attention to the repeats. We will learn more about repeats as our lessons go on. There are many different symbols used for replaying different parts of the song.
Articles You Should Read:
Down Up Strokes of the Pick: This is really important for the fill-in notes. Using down ups is the only way to play them fast enough.
Tricks for Memorizing Songs:
Music Theory You Should Know:
Intro
Syncopation
Repeat
TAB
Treble Clef
TAB Staff
Goals:
Play this song slowly, but with the correct timing and down-up strokes.
Goal #1:
Play the timing correctly. Above all else, this is the most important goal of this lesson. Syncopated notes are terribly difficult for me to play. If I don’t know the song it is especially hard. Thank goodness for the Guitar Pro file, where you can play along with the song and get a clear understanding of the time.
Goal #2:
Going along with the point of syncopation – playing the down up strokes of the pick is equally important – if you want to attain any speed that is. Just be sure to follow the down-up symbols. The down isthe little bridge and the up is the Vee.
Goal #3:
Try to memorize this song. First get the first two measure memorized – maybe on your first day. The next day move on and take on 2 more. Each day add two and by the end of day 5 you will have it memorize.
Goal #4:
Play the Repeats correctly. Be sure you understand repeats and why we use them.
What You Should Practice This Week:
This is covered in the goals above for this this lesson.
A special note. For the PDF of this lesson I have added another layer to the file. We have 3 layers total for this file. One is the Score information, One is the Tab Notes for the Rhythm, which we did last week and the Third one if for the Lead Tab Notes for this weeks lesson.
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, such as the RSE modules which give you realistic guitar files – they sound just like an Acoustic Guitar.
Guitar Pro File
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PDF File
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Tags: free guitar lessons, how to mute a guitar string, Kids Guitar Lessons, you belong with me
