The Middle by Jimmy Eat Word Tutorial/Lesson
The Middle
D, A, G
Download Printable Guitar Guide
Unlock with Patreon
Are you new to playing the guitar? Watch my free Beginner Series where I show you all of the basics. You'll be playing your first songs in minutes!
Video transcript
hey everyone my name is Ellen and today I'm going to be showing you guys how to play the middle by Jimmy Eat World on the guitar so stay tuned if this is something that you want to learn hey so this song is gonna be really great for beginners because there's only three chords in the entire song and none of them are Barre chords there's also no capo to play this in the original key and in addition to that there's only two strumming patterns that you need to know for the whole song so it's gonna be really great if you're brand new to guitar so let's go ahead and jump into what those chords look like okay so like I said the song is pretty easy there are only three chords in the whole thing and none of them are Barre chords let's go ahead and start with our D chord which looks like this and it sounds like this alright next we have our a chord which looks like this and sounds like this and then the last part you need to know is G which looks like this and sound like this and those are the only three chords in the whole song alright so once you have those chords memorized go ahead and take a few moments to try to transition between them smoothly this song goes kind of fast so you do want to make sure that you're able to transition between those chords smoothly the good thing is though that all the chords follow the same progression through the whole song it goes from D to a to G back to D whole song so as long as you can transition between those chords like that it'll be a lot easier for you so once you have the chords memorized and you've practiced those transitions let's go ahead and jump into some strumming patterns okay so if you're familiar with my tutorials you'll know that the first strumming pattern I always advise people to practice is more of a practice pattern and all you want to do is play one down strum on every chord change that way you can hear where those chords will be changing throughout the song so if you put your D chord on let's go ahead and practice this through you're going to strum it down one then you switch to a then he says 2g and then back to a now what you want to do with this is you want to take it through the whole song and just practice those transitions with the singing that way you know which words and stuff like that you're going to be practicing those transitions on so I'll go ahead and take you through the first verse if you have your D chord on we have don't read yourself off it's only in your head you feel left out or look down on just try your best try everything you can and don't you worry what they tell themselves when you're away so pretty much you want to take that through the rest of the song and just make sure you know which word you're going to be doing those transitions on it'll help you a lot whenever you try to go through your cover at the end all right so with that practice pattern down let's go ahead and jump into our first strumming pattern you'll see here that it's just eight down strums and you're going to want to repeat this pattern through twice for every chord so let's go ahead and go through this if you want to put your D chord on since that's the first chord in the song you're just going to take your pick and strum it down eight times if you don't have a pick you can use your thumb or your nail or anything else I prefer using a pick in this song just because I think it sounds a little more percussive which is a lot like the original song so anyway go ahead and put your D chord down and what I'm gonna do is just strum down a times that's the whole strumming pattern so one more time we've got one all right so now what I want you to do with this pattern is we're going to go ahead and add a little bit of a palm mute so what I'm doing is I'm taking the side of my hand and I'm resting it here on all six strings between my bridge and my sound hole and what that's going to do is it's going to mute the strings from ringing so much so with our D chord on let's try that again with a palm mute we have one two three four five six seven eight so you can hear how it's not ringing as much so one more time we have one two three four five six seven eight this skill takes a little bit of practice so if you guys want me to make a tutorial all about palm muting make sure to comment it down below so I know that that's something that you guys want me to do but anyways what you want to do now is go ahead and practice some of those chord transitions with the palm mute so go ahead put your D chord on we have 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 twice 2 3 4 5 6 then you switched your next chord which is a and it's the same thing one two three four five six seven eight twice two three four five six seven eight then we have G one two three four five six seven eight twice two three four five and then back to D one two three four five six seven eight twice two three four five six so now what we want to practice doing is we're going to emphasize certain beats in this pattern and that's just going to give it a more of a rhythmic feel so I'm going to go ahead and accent B first the fourth and the seventh beat so I'll go ahead and play that for you see you can see what that sounds like so we've got one two three four five six seven eight one two three four five and all I'm doing is I'm strumming down just a little bit more with a little bit more pressure on the first fourth and seventh beats and it's just gonna make it a little bit louder so it'll emphasize it so go ahead and put your D chord on and practice that with me we're going to emphasize the first fourth and seven feet so we've got one two three four five six seven eight one two three four five six seven eight okay and now go ahead and apply that for the rest of the chords let's go ahead and play through that first little round we've got twice hey twice remember those accents gee three four five six all right so that's the whole first strumming pattern all you want to do once you get the transitions down and you have the pattern down and you have those emphasises emphasises is emphasis is down and the business is down then and also you practice a little bit we've got palm mute the only thing you have left to do is speed it up so I'm going to go ahead and show you guys what this sounds like a little bit faster with everything put together so we've got only in your handout down just try your best all right and that's the whole strumming pattern I like to use that during all of the verses luckily for us this song is pretty simple and repetitive and there's only really just verses and choruses so I like to use this first strumming pattern for all the verses once you get that down and sped up let's go ahead and move on to our second strumming pattern so here's our strumming pattern it's down down up down up up down up up down up I know it seems a little bit long but since you're keeping the same chord on your left hand it's really easy to play so let's go ahead and play this through together if you put your D chord on we have down and you'll notice something that I'm doing is between all of those up-down-up sections you're going to be ending on and up so just go ahead and circle your hand back down to the bottom so you can start with another buster okay so we've got down circle around down then keep your hand down here we've got go back down okay so let's go ahead and take this through in rhythm so we've got so I hope you can hear the rhythm there we've got one two three four all right one more time all right and then once you have that rhythm down let's go ahead and add in those transitions so we've got a new switch to a down switch to G down and then switch back see down super easy you just got to practice it a little bit and then it'll come to you with the rhythm and everything and what you want to remember about this pattern is we're not going to repeat it twice for every chord it's just gonna play be played once for every chord so let's go ahead and take that through without stopping so I can show you what that sounds like we've got all right and then again once you have that down all you have to do is speed it up and I like to not Pamyu this section just because I think when it rings it makes it a little louder and it makes more attention on the chorus which I think sounds a lot more like the original song so let's go ahead and take this through one more time I'm going to play it a little bit faster and show you what it sounds like with the lyrics and again I'm going to be using this strumming pattern for the chorus so if I found my D chord on the beginning of the course we have all right so once you have everything down all we have to do now is put it all together so we can play through the whole song again I will be putting what strumming pattern I'm using for each part of this song as well as listing all of the lyrics and chord changes and everything on screen in front of you so when you're ready let's go ahead and continue and we'll play through the middle by Jimmy Eat World good luck hey don't rush yourself it's only in your head a feeling down just try your best try everything you can and don't you worry what they tell themselves we go away by right now yeah just be yourself it doesn't matter don't let yourself get any feel left out down just do your best do everything you can and so jewelry when they're bitter heart I got a day okay so that was my tutorial for the middle by Jimmy Eat World the song has always been one of my all-time favorites and I've been playing it non-stop lately so I figured I might as well do a tutorial for it because it's super easy and really great for beginners if you guys found this video helpful please make sure to give it a like down below as well as subscribe to my channel and if you are subscribed go ahead and turn that Bell notification on that way you know every single time I upload a new video here are my social media sites in case any of you guys want to follow me on anything and I think that's all I have to say on this one so I will see you guys in my next video bye