Intermediate Guitar Lesson 8

Hey There Delilah 2nd guitar part extravaganza!

To learn Hey There Delilah as the original, go to Hey There Delilah chords, to learn from Hey There Delilah, complete intermediate guitar lesson 8!

In this guitar lesson we’re going to create a 2nd guitar part to Plain White T’s monster hit Hey There Delilah.

The original part use an alternating pattern between the thumb playing the root of the chord with the rest of the hands fingers playing the rest of the chord.

This really is a classic comping style and should be practiced extensively, follow the etudes in Acoustic Finger Style Guitar (a part of The Spy Tunes Method) for many more examples.

2nd Guitar Part

For the second guitar part we are going to reverse the pattern, play along with the video in order to make this part sound natural, it is designed to work with the original part, not just on its own.

-2—-2—–2——–
—3—-3—–3——
—–2—-2———-
———————-
———————-
———————-

As you play this pattern you need to count like this: 1 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 2.

If you count the amount of numbers in that pattern you’ll find it was 8 of them. This is how many notes you can fit into a bar of 4/4 if you only play 8th notes (hence the name!).

So the pattern is simply 8th notes in a row, but because of the way they are grouped together (1 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 2) it doesn’t feel as if it’s just your average 4/4 pattern. Something is happening.

Hey There Delilah 2nd Guitar Part

3 against 4

What is happening is that we are playing 3 against 4, because of the repetitive shape of the pattern, we hear this as a stronger influence than the underlying 4/4.

By attacking a pattern like this we get a contrast to the original pattern which is just bass – chord – bass – chord etc.

To learn more about 3 against 4 and find it used in songs, without a “normal beat” going against it, check out Mad World in which I play 1 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 2 through out.

Other examples would be Clocks by Coldplay and That’s Not My Name by the Ting Tings.

3 against 4 when two chords in a bar

Since the 3 against 4 idea require a bar per chord in order to work we instantly run into trouble when we reach the end of the verse and there’s a G chord followed by an A chord in the same bar.

The only way out of this is to momentarily change the pattern, for example like this:

G           A
-3—-3–5—–5—-
—3——–5——–
—–4——–6——
———————-
———————-
———————-

Hey There Delilah - moving up

Moving on up the neck

As soon as you feel comfortable with your 3 against 4 pattern as I Tabbed out for you above, it’s time to start moving the pattern up the neck, exploring the different chord shapes as they appear.

Ideally you wanna do this in an improvised manner but I realize this might be a too big of a hurdle to climb instantly so I’ve tabbed out a version for you here that you can memorize if you want.

As soon as you can play it, do start exploring this without following the tab, change it as much as possible!

Hey There Delilah final lesson

Remember how I stated in the second lesson that anyone who has done some serious practice in their life realize that it’s all about getting as much out of a concept as possible?

Well on that note, combine your barred chord exercise of playing sections of a barred chord with what you have done in this lesson: move around the neck using other areas of each barred chord!

My examples have all been using string 1,2 and 3, it’s now time for you to use string 2, 3 and 4 as well as string 3, 4 and 5 and finally string 4, 5 and 6!

That did sound like an awful amount of work, didn’t it?

To find motivation, just imagine how much better you will know your chord shapes if you go all the way with this intermediate guitar lesson!

-Dan (your guitar guru)