I Shot The Sheriff

Oh goody, 'cept now I have to dig it out and remember what else was giving me problems. Though I think I was getting confused about the direction of the strumming in the later examples.

I had to put the lesson aside and practice the down mute up ring out on a 12 bar blues in E for a while. But it's driving me crazy because it starts to sound like some half remembered song. grrr Probably just my imagination.

Hi Primta

If you recall which examples, let me know and I'll try to help, okay? For the ones where it's a rest and then a single stroke, I usually go down on the rest and up on the stroke. But sometimes I do downstrokes on both. That probably isn't helpful...    ;)

Peace

Er...
My confusion starts with ex 3 and continues on through Chorus (with bassline) and verse (with bassline)  :)

or at least I think that's where it starts  :)

Hi David and Primeta,

Glad you put the MP3s up (thanks), and glad to go on with this lesson, missed being able to get on here due to a few weeks of PC problems.    :) :)

Oh goody, 'cept now I have to dig it out and remember what else was giving me problems. Though I think I was getting confused about the direction of the strumming in the later examples.

I had to put the lesson aside and practice the down mute up ring out on a 12 bar blues in E for a while. But it's driving me crazy because it starts to sound like some half remembered song. grrr Probably just my imagination.

I've been playing this for a few days and I think I understand your difficulties with the Ex 3 - I just try playing it really slow, putting in the mutes feels a bit clumsy when trying to play at speed, don't know if that helps.  It's easy to get that reggae feel with just the up strokes.  The Outro sounds pretty cool  :)  Oops, I mean the riff at the end of each verse.

Hi!

Some time ago I asked for advice on this song.

Perhaps my question was/is a bit off-topic, but I think it deals with several aspects that are bound to show up after awhile in a beginners learning process.

My original question was about what one could do during the "long" Em spells in this song between verse and chorus. I was also concerned about this kind of situation in general: what to do when you stay at one chord for a relatively long period?

Are these spells a good chance for a hammer-on, pull-off, bend sequence, short scale fragment? The answer is probably a big YES, but how should I approach this problem?
Should I try a pentatonic? The riff David suggests in the lesson is taken from the pentatonic. But his riff (the song's riff actually) is played after the last Em in the chorus and before the first Em in the new verse (not "during") .

Is it a good idea to play just one measure of Em, then our riff and proceed to the chorus?
Are there any cues besides the song's key (which dictates the tonality) to make me think in any specific direction: like watching out for the chord that precedes and the chord that comes after giving hints on what notes sound better?

Would anybody give us some TAB with a suggestion?

At the time, David wrote me back with some partial chords (different voicing for this song's chords) I wasn't quite into at the time. For some reason his post was deleted. After reading a couple of David's lessons on the subject (Love the one you're with; Give a little bit) I think I could give this a go.

Are the partial chords supposed to be played as the originally suggested ones? I mean using the same strumming pattern... or is there anything really obvious to be done with them that I'm not grasping (arpeggiating maybe)? Are they instead a part of the spicing-up for Em's I asked for?

Thanks a lot

I just wanted to add that I found it helpful to think boom chuck, boom chuck for the eighth note pairs, and boom chuck-a for the triplets, so when you have the eighth notes followed immediately by the triplets (as in Ex 2) you can think boom chuck, boom chuck - a, it helped to do this when not playing along with the MP3s, and helped to not fall into a Country and Western type feel when I played the alternating base line pattern, hope this makes sense :)

The Mp3s helped tremendously, with a bit of luck I'll have it by the time dh gets to Toronto :D

Hope this links OK : http://www.mikestrickland.net/reggae/
- it's got a really nice midi of I shot the Sheriff - with other instruments on it, so it's cool to try and play along with it if you haven't got the ALbum recording (I've got it but it's annoyingly not in it's cover) and you've mastered David's mp3s.

There's a tab for Eric Clapton's version of this song on the Power Tab Archive, but it's very difficult (for me) - perhaps you could try simplifying it estambre, I'll have a go and send it to you if I'm able :)

Hi!

I read Violet's message and had to laugh because it sounds as if I am in charge of something here. It's fine anyway.

I had a look at that powertab sometime last year and thought it was difficult mostly because of palm-muting. But palm-muting is a matter of getting used to it as I have been told and realise as I improve.

I'm really busy until July because I have to take a very important exam and had to stop playing as much. But I haven't stopped and will have a go at this soon.

I have also learned the solo in Roll over Beethoven from the Beatles' Complete Scores and a powertab you can download from the Net, which is really similar.

I promise I will try to do something with both songs for Guitar Noise (if I manage).

Bye

Hi,
I just got to the Sherrif song and i see that if i don't have a capo i have to use the barre chords . Can't i go around it somehow? :cry:

Just use the Am/C/Em chords. Of course, you'll still need the Bm, which is a barre chord. You'll still be playing "I Shot the Sheriff", but in a different key.

thanks for the help. If i undestand the issue of keys correctly, then it's like playing a scale, only with chords instead of single notes, right? :shock:

A key is the basis for both chords and scales. In fact chords are simply a selection of notes from a particular scale. The C major chord is taken from the C major scale and consists of the first, third and fifth positons in the scale - C, E, G.
The D major chord is the same pattern (1st, 3rd, 5th), but from the D major scale - D, F#, A. All major chords are built, using the same pattern (1, 3, 5). Minor chords use the same pattern, but from the minor scale.
Chord progressions are built from the positions within a particular scale. Probably the most widely used chord progression in the I-IV-V. This takes chords from the 1st, root, position, the 4th and the 5th. In C, that would be the chords C, F, G. In D that would be the chords D, G, A. These would all be major chords. So to change from C to D, you substitute the chords from the same position in the D scale that you had in the C scale (which is a long winded way of answering your question). :lol:
However, to harmonise the chords with the scale (in this case to avoid playing notes in chords, that are not found in the scale that you are playing), you have to change some chords from major. For example, I can use a D chord when playing in the key of C (from the 2nd position of the C scale), but the notes of the D major chord are D, F#, A. There is no F# in the C scale, so the chord is changed to D, F, A (all of which are found in C), which is a D minor. The chord can't clash with the C scale because it only contains notes that are also in C. Taking the whole sequence, from root back to root, the chords are major, minor, minor, major, major, minor, diminished and major again (In C, Cmaj, Dmin, Emin, Fmaj, Gmaj, Amin, Bdim, Cmaj).
In a minor key, the overall sequence is the same, except that it starts with the minor chord from the 6th position of the major scale - minor, diminished, major, minor, minor, major, major and minor again.