That's So True by Gracie Abrams Tutorial/Lesson
That's So True
F/C, Am7, Gadd4, C
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Video transcript
hey everyone it's Ellen here and today I'm going to be showing you guys how to play that so true by Gracie Abrams on the guitar but first really quick I did want to shout out journey instruments i Am featuring their of660 travel guitar this is just like all of their other models where it actually collapses in half and it's made of carbon fiber so it's super sturdy so if you are interested I will make sure to link more information about it down below 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 to play this song you only need to know four different chord shapes and we're going to start with our F over C 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 sing on screen I Do cover how to do that my free beginner Series right here on YouTube so make sure check that out right here the next chord shape is our a minor 7 after that we have our G add four and then the last chord shape is our C major and one quick piece of advice is for the F over C and the a minor 7 and the C chord I do like to take my thumb and kind of wrap it around the guitar and just lightly touch this low E string to mute it so that when I'm strumming the rest of the chords it kind of mutes that low E string cuz we don't need it to play it um but anyways uh those are the only chords you need to know to play through the 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 because it'll make learning the rest of the song so much easier and if your chord transitions is something you're currently wanting to work on I do have an entire practice with me playlist right here on YouTube where we go through this skill and build it up in real time together so I'll make sure to leave that link right here 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 you can use to play through this song all right guys so for our strumming pattern for this song I do have some good news and some bad news the good news is the pattern that you see on screen right now is going to be the pattern that you can use for the entire song so you only have to learn this pattern to play it the bad news is if you want to play it at the same speed as graci Abrams original song it is going to move super quick which can take a lot of practice okay um but basically I'm going to show you how we can count this pattern and apply it through the song and then I'm going to come back and show you guys three different ways that you can dress up this strumming pattern to make it sound you know more like the original recording so first let's go ahead and break down this Rhythm we are going to be counting in a 16th note Rhythm so if you don't know what that is or how to count that check out my beginner series here on YouTube it's free and I go over all of that there but basically it's going to sound like this we have one E and A 2 E and A 3 E and A 4 e and a one E and A 2 E and A 3 E and A 4 e and a one E and A 2 E and A 3 e and a four cor and a down up down up down down up down up down up down down up all right so if you're already confused on how to count this or the coordination of getting all of the down and up strums I do have an entire practice with me series here on YouTube for strumming where we build this skill in real time together as well so I'll make sure to link the video that goes with this strumming pattern in the corner for those of you who need it um but basically what we're going to do is we're going to apply this strumming pattern for the entire song and it's either going to repeat twice per chord or just be played once per chord so if we go ahead and take a look at the first verse you can see here we're starting on our F over C and for this one you want to repeat this pattern twice for our F over C so we have down up down up down down up twice then you go to your a minor 7 once and on G add four on all right so this F over C to a minor 7 to G add4 progression is going to repeat itself throughout most of the song so we have it for all the verses the pre choruses the first chorus you know all of that and it's going to be played just like this so what you want to do is speed it up a little so closer to full Tempo it'll sound more like this we've got down up down up down up down down up a minor 7 G add four all right and like I said that repeats for almost the entire song the only place it's going to be a little bit different is when we get to the bridge of the song this is where we're going to introduce that c chord and since we have four chords now each of these chords is just going to get one time through the pattern so it's going to go from F over C straight to a minor 7 to C to G add four all right so that's the only place where you know it's a little bit different but again this strumming rhythm is exactly the same for the entire song um but as promised there are three things that I would recommend doing to the strumming pattern to really just take your performance up a notch and make it sound a little bit more like the original song so the first thing that I think is the easiest thing to do is to add some accents so basically what an accent is is whenever you're strumming you want to give it a little extra emphasis on certain down strums and that will kind of create a little bit of a rhythm to the person listening so the ones that I would recommend accenting are the first beat the end of the two and the fourth beat okay so in this strumming Rhythm we have down up down up down up down down up so hopefully you can hear the accent all I'm doing there is for the accented down strums I'm strumming all the strings but then for the rest of them I'm kind of just concentrating more on the middle strings all right so we have down up down up down up down down up and you want to do that throughout the entire song So a minor 7 to G all right and as you speed up the strumming pattern you'll hear how it really helps Drive the Rhythm forward so at full Tempo it sounds more like this all right so you want to think about it for the listener every time you're accenting they're going to be you know tapping their foot or nodding their head that's the kind of Rhythm that you want to have for this song okay um the second thing that I would recommend adding in is called a palm mute so this is something that a lot of artists do a lot of the time but basically you want to take the side of your hand with your pick in it and just ever so gently rest it on your guitar strings really close to where the bridge of your guitar is and if you kind of rest it there you can hear whenever you're strum uming it has a dampened sound so it's a little more muted instead of ringing out okay and if you apply this Palm mute to all of the down strums and I'm still adding the accents as well um if you apply that to the verses and the pre choruses it really helps distinguish between different parts of the song and it helps the vocals stand it as well so with the verse you would go like I can go and read your mind think about your dumb face all the time living in your glass house I'm outside okay but then when you get to the chorus you would take the Palm mute out so stop you know muting the strings with your right hand let the strings ring out and that'll differentiate between the chorus think so cool piing back on your couch taking eyes from across the room all right so again all of these little accents and uh palm muting and all that is totally optional but if you can add it in I do think it'll like bump up the level of your guitar playing and make it sound a lot cooler and then the last thing I would recommend adding in are some hammer on okay so basically with hammer on we're going to be shifting our Focus back to our left hand and I'm just going to teach you how to hammer on for each of these chords so let's take a first look at our F over c chord the secret to making this song sound really really close to the original and also having more fun with it is you're going to be your middle finger you want to start with it off the string okay and then as it's ringing you want to hammer it on to where it's supposed to go okay so we're going to use our middle finger on the second fret of the G string so basically it'll sound like this all right so in the context of the chord we've got F over C it's kind of not super noticeable but you can hear it in the um original song you are going to have to work on your calluses on your fingertip to make sure your fingers don't hurt when you're doing this um all of this again is a little bit more advanced but it does sound really cool if you can add that in um so like I said I'll show you the rest of the chords A minor 7 again it's your middle finger you're going to start with that off and then hammer it on so here's the isolated okay so we have okay um really in the song The F over C and the a minor 7 is where you hear it the most but you could also apply it to your other chords as well just for fun if you wanted for your G add4 again middle finger starts off and then you've hammer it onto the second fret so isolated all right and then if you if you wanted to do c same thing middle finger starts off and then you just hammer it on okay so if you wanted to I would apply that frill on the first beat of every new measure so one time through would sound like this so now if you add all of these tips together so you add the accented beats and you have a palm mute going and you do the chord frill it'll sound so cool Al together so all together it would sound like this all right and again I will repeat myself one more time this does take practice so if you are a beginner at Guitar make sure you take plenty of time to First memorize those chords and then get the transitions down and then understand the strumming pattern and then you can add in all these cute little Frills to make it sound a little bit more cool um but anyways that is how you would play the string pattern and again you could use luse all of this for the entire song and it sounds really great all right guys so again go ahead and pause the video and take as much time as you need to really get that strumming Rhythm under your belt like I said if you are a beginner at guitar and you're not super familiar with these kinds of strumming patterns and how to count them it can take a while to get it up to the speed you need to get it at in order to play it with Gracie Abrams um but it will take some practice but I know you can do it so again check out my practice with me series if you need help with the strumming um but once you have all of that put together then we can go ahead and put the chords transition strumming everything together to play through the song One 2 ready go I could go and read your mind think about your dumb face all the time living your glass house I'm outside looking in a big blue eyes did it just to hurt me make me cry through it all yeah that's my life you're enity now I'm sure now I'm positive I should and her Want to Have Fun jamming out to the rest of the 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 FasTrack and playong guitar tutorials and over there you can also download a printable guide for this song that has everything I've taught in this tutorial so you can take it with you and learn it on the go um so if you are interested in either of those I will make sure to link them both 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