Basket Case by Green Day Tutorial/Lesson
Basket Case
D, A, Bm, F#m, G, C
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Video transcript
Hey everyone, my name is Ellen and today I'm going to be showing you guys how to play Basket Case by Green Day on the guitar. And today I am featuring my Journey Instruments OF420 guitar, which is one of the coolest guitars that I own because it is actually a collapsible travel guitar. So you can actually fold it in half, pack it with you in a backpack, and take it wherever you go. So if you're interested in this model or any of their other collapsible travel guitars, I will link them in the description box down below. I want to give a quick shout out and thank you to my patrons for voting on this song as this month's patron picks. So, if you want a little bit of voting power in the songs that you see me teach on this channel, make sure to check it out. I will link it in the description box down below as well. One quick note about today's tutorial is I am going to be teaching it kind of in a more easy like acoustic version style. So, if you want to learn it the way that it's actually played, it does require you to tune down your guitar a half step. They play it on electric guitar. They use a lot of power chords. But in this tutorial today, I wanted to do more of the acoustic route. So, we are going to be in standard tuning with a capo and we're going to have just traditional chord shapes instead of power chords. So, if that's what you're looking for, then stay tuned. Here is a quick overview of everything I'll be covering in this tutorial today. And with that being said, let's go ahead and get started. All right, guys. So, you only need to know six different chord shapes to play through this entire song. And we're going to start with our D major, which looks like this and sounds like this. And by the way, if you don't know how to read these chord charts you're seeing on screen, I do cover how to do that in my free beginner series right here on YouTube. So, make sure to check that out right here. The next chord shape is our A major. We also have our B minor bar chord. The other bar chord is our F# minor. There's also our G major. And the last chord shape you need to know is our C major. And those are the six chords you need to know to play through this song. So go ahead and pause the video and take as much time as you need to really memorize these chord shapes, as well as practice transitioning back and forth between them, cuz it'll make learning the rest of the song so much easier for you. The song actually moves super super quickly. So, you want to make sure you have those chord transitions down. So, if this is something you're currently struggling with and need help with, I do have a practice with me chord transitions playlist here on YouTube. So, I'll link that in the corner for those of you who need it. But once you have these chords under your belt, then we can go ahead and talk about the strumming that I would suggest for this song. All right, guys. So, for strumming today, I do have two different patterns I wanted to show you. But, let's go ahead and start with the first one that you hear more at the beginning of the song. As you can see, it's just all downstrums. And we're going to count this in an eighth note count. So, it's going to sound like this. We have 1 and 2 and 3 and four and down down down. All right, super simple. Just all downstrums on each eighth note beat. But basically, this pattern is the one that I would suggest using more at the beginning of the song to kind of mimic the way they play it. So, basically what we would do is play this pattern through one time per chord. There are going to be a few measures where you're going to hold it out for two measures, but I have all of that marked on my guide that's on my Patreon page. Um, so let's go ahead and pull up verse one. We're starting here on our D chord. You just want to play this pattern through once. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and to a 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and B minor F sharp minor. And you might already be hearing that it's very kind of like muddy sounding cuz we're just letting everything ring out. So, two things that I would suggest adding to this strumming pattern is accents and palm muting. Let's go ahead and talk about palm muting first. What you want to do is take the side of your hand that has your pick in it. And you want to gently lay the side of your palm here against the strings as you play. And you want to do this kind of over where the bridge of your guitar is. So your hand should be pretty far back. Okay? And as you kind of strum down, you'll hear how it kind of dampens the strings and stops them from ringing out as much. All right? So what you want to do is apply this palm mute throughout as you play through this. So, we've got D 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and to A, B minor, F# minor. All right. And the other thing, like I said, to add in is accents. So, when you're listening to the original song, they actually accent different um beats every time they play through a different measure. So rather than going through and telling you exactly which beats to accent, I think the easier thing to do if you are a beginner at guitar and you're working on your rhythm is just to kind of specify certain beats to accent. So I'm going to go ahead and turn some of these arrows green. And these are going to represent the beats that I want you to try to accent. Okay? So whenever we're accenting strums, basically you're just taking your hand with your pick and you're kind of giving it more of a forceful like energetic strum. So, for example, on our D chord, you're going to strum all the strings with a little extra emphasis, like flick of the wrist. All right, that's an accent. And in comparison, all of the ones that are purple or not accented, you kind of just want to have a little less of a motion and a little bit quieter of a sound. So, if we accent the one, the end of the two, and the four, it'll sound like this. We've got 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and to a B minor to F sharp minor. So hopefully you can hear how those accented green beats are a little bit louder. Now, if you can add the accents and the palm mute together, this is what's going to accomplish that kind of like Green Day kind of punk rock kind of sound that they have at the beginning of the song. So, let me go ahead and show you both of these techniques together. We've got 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And notice the accents are in there, but I'm still palm muting the strings as well. Okay? And we're going kind of slow compared to how fast the song goes, but I want you to just concentrate on the technique. Okay? Do you have the time to listen to me wind and everything all at once? All right. And you can see that A chord there is an example of where we want to hold this for two measures. Again, I have all of that marked on my guide that's on my Patreon page. But basically, that is how you can play through the first like part of the song with the palm muted all downstrum accented pattern. Of course, you are going to have to be able to speed this up quite fast if you want to play at the original tempo, but basically a little bit closer to full tempo would sound something like this. Do you have the time to listen to me whine about everything all at once? All right. So, it can be quite hard to keep up that pace as well as keep those accents going and apply the palm mute. So, again, if you're a beginner, I would just take this one step at a time and focus on one thing at a time. That is the first strumming pattern that I wanted to show you guys, and I would recommend using that through the first verse and the first half of the first chorus. And starting on the later half of the first chorus is where I would suggest a second strumming pattern. So, let's go ahead and talk about strumming pattern two. All right, guys. So, strumming pattern two is, I think, the easier pattern to play, especially if you're going to be playing the song super fast at the original tempo. And as you can see, we're in another eighth note count. We've just got 1 and 2 and 3 and four and 1 and 2 and 3 and four and 1 and two and three and four and down up down up down up. All right, this is a super classic strumming rhythm that you'll see used in a lot of songs and you can actually apply it to this one as well. But basically, same rules apply. You want to play it through one time per chord, except for those couple measures when you want to keep on the same chord for two measures. So, let's go ahead and play through that first verse with this second strumming pattern. So, again, we're starting on our D chord. You're going to play this pattern through one time per chord. So, we've got D down, up, up, down, up to A, B minor, F sharp minor. All right, just like that. And you can apply the second struming pattern to the whole song if you wanted. Everything all at once. All right. So, if you find this a little bit easier, you can totally use this to play through the whole song. I think it's a little easier because you don't have to worry about accents or palm muting or anything like that, but it is going to sound a little more acoustic than the, you know, original song. Um, basically, the reason I wanted to show you guys the second strumming pattern is because you can actually use it through a lot of the song. So, let's go ahead and take a look at that chorus. What I would suggest doing with the chorus is we're going to switch from our all downstrum palm muted pattern into this second one. So at the beginning for the first three lines, I would suggest doing our first pattern. Sometimes I give myself the creeps. D is two measures. Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me. It all keeps adding up. Right here on I think I'm cracking up. This is when the drums come in. It gets a lot louder. So, this is where I would switch over to our second strumming pattern. But one more thing to add in is there are going to be places where we're going to have a split measure or two chords within one measure. So, I think I'm cracking up goes from D to C to B minor. And this is an example of that. So, our D and our C chord are going to split a measure. So, whenever you see a split measure, I would suggest altering this strumming pattern just a little bit. We're going to go down, down, up for each of the chords. Okay? So, on our D chord, we've got 1 2 and switch to your C chord. 3 4 and. All right. So, I'm going to go ahead and add a little vertical line as well. That's just going to show where we're going to change chords. So, on this line, I think I'm cracking up. D is going to get the left half. 1 2 and switch here to C. 3 4 and then when you get to your B minor, we're going to go back to that full pattern. Down up down up. All right. So that line there is I think I'm cracking up. So the second strumming pattern, this is where I would suggest using it is anytime the song's a little bit louder with all of the instruments in. So, um, and then again, remember the split measure pattern we need to use whenever we are doing a split measure. Again, I have all of the counting of all these chords listed on my guide to help you with that. But let's go ahead and go through the whole chorus. You can hear how all three of these strumming patterns melt together to go through the song. Okay. Sometimes I give myself the minds tricks on me. It all keeps adding up. I think I'm cracking up. Am I just? So, right here in this little interlude break section, this is another example of where we're going to use that split pattern. We've got D to A, B minor to A. And you'll see this throughout the song. We'll do it again later after the second chorus and then again at the end. So that's how you can play through this entire song. The only place that's going to be different is that bridge here. So on the bridge, it's just this one line. Grasping to control here. I would switch back to the all downstrum pattern. Grasping to control mute. So I better hold on. All right. Um but basically any of the patterns that I've taught today, you can use it to play through the song as you like. These are always just, as I say, suggestions. So, take whichever ones you like or you can play better and you can use it for the whole song. All right, guys. So, again, go ahead and pause the video and take as much time as you need to really look over these strumming rhythms. These are all really common strumming rhythms that once you learn them, you'll be able to apply them to so many songs. So, I would definitely take the time to kind of get used to them. If this is something that you're struggling with, I do actually have a practice with me strumming pattern series on my channel as well, and I cover both of these strumming patterns over there. So, I will link that playlist in the corner if you need it. But once you have the strumming under your belt, then we can go ahead and put everything we've learned together in this tutorial to play through the song. 1 2 3 4 1 2 ready go. Do you have the time to listen to me whine about nothing and everything all at once? I am one of those melodramatic fools. Neurotic to the bone. No doubt about it. >> Want to have fun to the rest of this song with me? >> Then make sure to check out my Patreon page where you can unlock access to this as well as all my other fast track and playalong guitar tutorials. I'll make sure to link it in the description box down below. If you enjoyed learning this song with me, then you should definitely check out this video. Not only does it have a super similar vibe and feel, but it's just as fun and easy to play. So, I'll see you over there. Bye.