We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel / Fall Out Boy Tutorial/Lesson
We Didn't Start the Fire
G, D, Em, C, Am
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Video transcript
foreign my name is Ellen and today I'm going to be showing you guys how to play We Didn't Start the Fire on the guitar here's 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 and really quick you might have noticed that I didn't mention an artist in my intro that's because I know that this song was originally by Billy Joel but I know that I also just heard the fallout boy version so I just wanted to clarify something that you can actually follow this tutorial through for both versions the only difference between them is the words or the lyrics that were used but as far as the guitar goes it's exactly the same to play both versions of this song so that's why there's no artist on this it's just we didn't start the fire either Billy Joel or Fall Out Boy whichever one you want to play you can follow this tutorial for alright guys so you only need to know five chord shapes to play through this song and we're gonna go ahead and start with our G major which looks like this and sounds like this thank you 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 my free beginner course right here on YouTube so make sure to check that out the next chord is our D major there's our C major and last is our a minor and really quick if you are adventurous I have a bonus chord for you which is our D suspended four literally only use this at the very end of the song to end the song with I think it sounds better than your regular D but you can also just play your regular D instead so go ahead and pause the video and take as much time as you need to memorize these chord shapes as well as practice transitioning back and forth between them because it will make playing through the song so much easier for you and if this is something that you're currently struggling with I would suggest checking out my practice with me Series where we go through the skill in real time together but once you have that down we can go ahead and talk about the strumming for this song Alright guys so as I always say if you are brand new to playing guitar or you struggle with singing and playing at the same time the first thing I would suggest you do is to start with a practice pattern which is just a single down strum on every chord change throughout the song so here's a quick example of what that would look like yeah am I right King deep fakes earthquakes all right so basically you would do that for the entire song and just take a mental note of what word or syllable you're singing whenever you're changing those chords um and this is actually something you do right now if you check out my patreon page I do have this entire guide available to download and print out so I'll make sure to leave that link in the description box down below but once you've done that we can go ahead and talk about more of a full strumming pattern alright guys so my first suggestion as you can see is down down up up down up this is going to be the slightly easier way to play through this song because the rhythm is fairly basic so let's go ahead and jump in and talk a little bit more about that Rhythm alright guys so we are going to be in an eighth note rhythm today so basically you're gonna count that like this we have one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and down down up up down up down down up up down all right and basically what you want to do is play this pattern through one time for every chord throughout the entire song now the reason I said that this is kind of the easier version of the two strummings I wanted to show you is because this song so incredibly fast that I think that this strumming pattern is a little bit less tiring um but basically what you want to do is let's go ahead and take a look at the first first so on our G chord we have down down up up down your D chord down down up up down up to E minor down down up up down up and then to C down down up up down this song is awesome because most of the song follows this chord progression in this chord order so basically once you get those down you can play through almost the entire song so we have G to D D minor pattern here goes first one foreign so like I said this can apply for basically the entire song I think it sounds really good where I like to use it specifically is going to be in the intro the outro and the choruses for all the verses of the song I actually like to use a second strumming pattern so let's go ahead and talk about strumming pattern too hey in addition to the printable guide we've been looking at did you know I also offer customizable backing tracks polls for What songs you want to learn next and even video chats if you're having trouble you can unlock all these perks and more if you become a patron which helps me grow my channel and make more videos just like this one or if patreon's not your thing you can still help me out a lot by giving me a thumbs up and leaving a comment below to help me reach more people in YouTube's recommendations it only takes a second but it makes a huge difference so thanks so much and let's get back and do it alright guys so my second strumming suggestion as you can see is just all down strums and even though this rhythm is pretty easy like I said because the song Moves so quickly I do think it's a slightly harder than the first swimming pattern but either way let's go ahead and zoom in and talk a little bit more out the Rhythm alright guys so for strumming pattern two you still can count this like an eighth note Rhythm so we have one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one two and three and four and down down down down down down down down so I'm pretty much going the speed that I like to play it through which like I said is very quick so that's what makes this throwing pattern I think a little bit harder um but basically what you would do is play this pattern through one time per chord throughout the entire song now what's going to make this a little bit trickier but also sound so much more like the original is I'm going to underline some of these down strums and that's just going to represent where we're going to Accent these beads okay so when you accent all you're doing is you're strumming with just a slight bit more power than the other down strums surrounding it so you can hear now with the accents it would be one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and all right and so what this is going to do is have a driving Rhythm that's gonna go through the whole song and it's gonna sound just like both the Billy Joel and the fallout boy version so with our chord progression we have G right and then the last thing I want to add to this that I think will help you sound more like the song is to add a palm mute so basically what I'm doing there is I'm taking my right hand with my pick in it and I'm taking the side of my palm and just gently laying that on the bridge of the guitar so now when you strum those strings you can hear it's a little more dampened and this is going to be really good for making those accents that we talked about a second ago even punchier so now we have G d e if you add in that Palm mute with the accents I think this is the ideal strumming pattern for this song I think it sounds really close to both the versions so let me go ahead and show you an example of what this would sound like at full Tempo we have g d e minor C Captain Planet Arab Spring LA riots Rodney King deep flakes earthquakes ice and volcano Oklahoma City bomb Kurt Cobain Pokemon Tiger Woods Myspace all right so if you want to apply this strumming pattern I do think this one's a little bit more accurate to the song but what I actually like to do is play this strumming pattern for all of the verses and then I'll do the first strumming pattern for all of the choruses so again go ahead and pause the video and take as much time as you need to practice these strumming patterns and really internalize the Rhythm because if you can do it without thinking about it too much that'll make singing on top of it so much easier but once you've done that we can go ahead and put everything we've learned together to play through the song one two ready go Captain Planet Arab Spring LA riots Iceland volcano Oklahoma City Wanna 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 Fast Track and play along guitar tutorials I'll make sure to leave a link 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 but it's just as fun and easy to play over there bye