It’s springtime, can you feel it? Longer days, equals more sunshine, equals better mood, equals happy jamming! To help you get in shape for spring, we’ve got two easy peasy songs that you can play with six basic guitar chords. Of course we’re going to explain those chords with some video tutorials. Come check it out.
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
In this springtime blog
- Get in shape
- Flower – Moby
- Four basic chords
- C chord video tutorial
- D chord video tutorial
- F chord video tutorial
- G chord video tutorial
- Young Folks – Peter Bjorn and John
- Some more basic chords
- Dm chord video tutorial
- Am chord video tutorial
Get in shape
All you need for a nice springtime jam is a couple of good tunes to play along with, and the occasional exercises to get you ready for the sunny days to come. To help you get in shape, we made a nice blend of just that. In this blog post you’ll find two cheerful songs, and some exercise tips to improve your skills. Excited already? Good, so are we!
Flower — Moby
Let’s start off with a nice repetitive track that will make your audience sing along instantly. If you’re a sporty crossfitter you might recognize this song from the Sally challenge in which people are supposed to follow the up and down commands while doing squats, push ups, or burpees. Now that’s what we call getting in shape! But that’s not why we’ve chosen this song for this article.
The actual reason? Well, the “Flower” by Moby chords are pretty easy for ukulele, guitar, and piano players. As a matter of fact the whole song is made of five basic triads. So all you need to do is brush up those basic skills, and you’re good to go. Want to know how? Read on.
Four basic chords
We’ve written a lot about basic chords theory, and we’ve even made some tutorials about the nine open triads for guitar. In “Flowers” by Moby we see that four of those chords make the whole song. Let’s walk through those chords.
The song starts off with a C, after the C we follow up with a D. At some point Moby adds the F chord, followed up by the G chord. And that’s all that is to it! Easy peasy lemon squeezy as we like to say.
Young Folks — Peter Bjorn and John
Now you know how to play a catchy tune, while brushing up some basic chord knowledge. That’s a great way to get in shape. So why don’t we repeat this little exercise with some more chords? Don’t worry, we’ve got just the track for your springtime set. It will fit perfectly after Moby’s “Flower”. Especially the whistling part. People are gonna love it.
The “Young Folks” chords that Peter Bjorn and John play are a great addition to the triads we already discussed. Some are even the same, like the G chord, and the C chord. The newcomers are the Dm chord, the Am chord, and the Fmaj7. The latter is a bit tricky, so in a way you can use the skills that you picked up playing the F chord to tackle this one.
Some more basic chords
We’re going to replace the Fmaj7 with a regular F chord to make your life a bit easier. If the F isn’t a challenge, just check out the chord diagram of the Fmaj7 in the song, and try to play it. Practice makes perfect. That leaves us with just two chords that you’ll have to rehearse before jamming away. The first one being Dm.
Once you’ve mastered the Dm chord, it’s time to practice on your Am chord skills. In the video below we’ll show you how to play one of the most melancholic open chords on guitar. After that it’s time for you to start playing along with “Flowers” and “Young Folks”, because it’s springtime, and people want to hear some cool tracks. Happy jamming!
