Feelin Alright - Joe Cocker (Easy Songs Beginner Guitar Lesson ST-521) How to play

Hello, how are you doing?

It is Justin here for
another guitar lesson.

This time we're checking out

possibly the easiest song of all time,

which is "Feelin' Alright"

We're doing the Joe Cocker version,

but there are lots of different
versions of this tune.

If you're going to play
along with his version,

you're going to need a capo.

In fact, most of the versions
that I listened to this morning,

require the use of a capo.

Really, all you need is a capo,
and your chords A and D.

It's pretty straightforward.

If you're doing a Joe Cocker version,
you need the capo on the third fret,

which is what I'm going to
teach you today.

If you want to do the Lulu version,
you need the capo at the 8th fret,

which would be good for a girl singer.

If you're going to do the
Dave Mason version,

you want the capo on the 2nd fret.

And if you're going to do the
Grand Funk Railroad version,

like play along with their track,

you need the capo on the 5th fret,

but the chords and the sequence
all stay the same all the time

for this simple version.

You can do all sorts of fancy stuff
with this tune, if you wanted to.

So, the most super-duper
easy version of this,

it's one bar of A and one bar of D.

Repeat, over and over again,
for the whole song.

So, if we just do four strums
in each bar on the A chord,

♪ We've got to have a change of scene... ♪

Change the D back to the A:

♪ Cause every night I have
the strangest dreams... ♪

♪ Imprisoned by the way
things used to be... ♪

♪ I left here on my
own or, so it seems... ♪

And that's it. I mean,
the chorus is the same:

♪ Feelin' alright, oh-ohhh... ♪

♪ I ain't feelin' too good
myself, oh-ohhh... ♪

You can imagine doing this
for a whole song, though,

probably might get a little bit
[simulates snoring].

You want to practice it so
you can do that first,

but you probably want to make
it a little more fancy if you can.

So, a really good way of
making it a little more fancy

is to change the chords a little bit,

and to make them into
an A7 and a D7 chord.

If you haven't learned those
chords, don't worry about it.

Just stick to doing your A and the D.

But once you've learned
your A7 and D7,

you might want to incorporate those.

Make the chords a little bit fancy.

Or maybe use A and D for the verses,

and A7 and D7 for
the choruses or something.

That might be an interesting
way of doing it. Up to you.

But if we look at those chords now,

we just have A7 [strums chord]
to D7 [changes chord].

♪ I ain't feelin' too
good myself, oh-ohhh... ♪

♪ Feelin' alright, oh-ohhh... ♪

♪ I ain't feelin' too good myself,
oh-ohhh... ♪

Still not quite there, is it?

That little thing, that little magic
ingredient that we need is the rhythm.

Now, because it's kind of an
uptempo, funky kind of tune,

generally, we'd use 16th note strumming,

which isn't covered in my
beginners' course.

It'll be touched on in the
intermediate course,

and it's also explained in my DVD called,

"Really Useful Strumming
Techniques, Volume 2,"

but you don't really need
to go through that

if you just want to get
this tune down now.

What you need to know is the real
basic thing about 16th notes,

is that you're going to strum
four movements for each beat.

So, in a bar, we've got 1-2-3-4 beats,

and each one of those are
going to be divided by 4,

which would be down-up-down-up.

So we'd have, 1-2-3-4 / 1-2-3-4 /
1-2-3-4 / 1-2-3-4

Now, if you just strummed
continuously like that,

it might sound a bit more interesting,
but it's probably not exactly right.

But that would be:
♪ I'm feelin' alright, oh-ohhh... ♪

♪ I ain't feelin' too good
myself, oh-ohhh... ♪

Slightly more
advanced again, if you want.

If you're capable of it, is to
get some accents going,

and/or not have accents and
just strum these chords,

but keep your hand moving.

And if you're going to do that,
if you want a suggested one,

you could muck around with it,
by all means, and improvise a bit,

but if you want me to suggest
one, then you might want to try:

[strumming] down-down-up-up-up-down /
down-down-up-up-up-down

[strumming & speaking] See the way
my hand keeps moving, all the time.

down-down-up-up-up-down /
down-down-up-up-up-down, etc.

♪ ...alright, oh-ohhhh. I ain't
feelin' too good myself, oh-ohhh... ♪

♪ Feelin' alright, oh-ohhh...
You're feelin' too good yourself, oh-ohhh ♪

And with these two cords,
the cool thing about this tune

is that you can really... you can have
a really good muck around with it.

There's not really any set strumming,
you can really play about with the rhythm

Now the actual chords themselves,
for those more advanced players

C7

and F7

So of course, if you
wanted to, you could

definitely play up here: C

F7

And any variations of that
if you want to get all clever

and start putting in funky chords

And it is actually a really
good tune for playing about with

C dominant and F dominant chords.

For those more advanced players
that have probably got this far

which I guess is probably not too many,
most of you would have left,

when I started going A and D,
but you can have a bit of a play around

with experimenting with all your
dominant chords, you want to

check out my "Funk Guitar Rhythm" lessons

and that'll explain all of that.

Have some fun with it,

I'll see you again for another lesson
sometime real soon.

Take care!
Bye-bye!