“You Are My Sunshine” Song Lesson

INSTRUCTOR: Let's learn your first chord-melody song. I'm going to teach you, You Are My Sunshine, the old classic. I chose this song, because the melody can be played easily on the first, second, and third strings. So it kind of fits our needs for Travis Picking, and also, it sounds decent, even when you don't syncopated it. We're going to be playing the melody all on the beat.

It's not normally how a melody goes. Usually, there are notes on the offbeat, too, but I wanted to keep this first lesson relatively simple rhythmically. So I think the melody still sounds good. I don't know. You see for yourself. This is what it's going to sound like.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

I imagine you're thinking, oh, my gosh, that looked really hard, and you know, you'd be right. This is not an easy skill to learn. I actually just notice that this is the 13th lesson in my course. And if you were a superstitious person, you might be thinking, wow, if I could ever use a bit of luck, it would be during this lesson. And yeah, but you don't need luck.

I'm going to be with you every step of the way here, and I'm going to take you through this first chord-melody song part by part. And we're going to slowly build it, until you can play the whole thing, OK? So hang with me here, and before we dig into the music, I have four tips for you. Your job in learning this song is not unlike juggling.

You're going to have a couple of balls in the air here. You've got your thumb going, and you've got your fingers going. And it is tough to get these two things to be working independently, but there's a formula to it. And you just need to kind of build these skills piece by piece.

So here are my four tips for getting started playing chord-melody finger style and specifically for Travis picking. The first tip is to learn the melody, which you're playing with your fingers, and the chords, which you're playing with your thumb separately. You know, when you learned to strum chords, for example, at least, if you learned from me, I had you train your fretting hand to learn to fret the chord, and then you trained your strumming hand by working on the strum pattern, maybe while you were just damping the strings or playing an easy chord that you already knew. So you kind of learned the left hand and the right hand stuff separately and then eventually brought them together once you were good at both those things. Well, the same strategy does apply to Travis picking to some degree, so we're going to use that strategy as we learn "You Are My Sunshine".

The second tip is to, when you start putting the two together, when you start putting the melody and the chord part together, when you're just starting out, it's best just to work on them one measure at a time. I call this, like, the siege warfare approach to learning music, where you're not trying to do it in rhythm necessarily, although, we will try that sometimes. You're not trying to get a long passage to flow. You're really just going very slowly, just learning a few notes at a time. Now, once you get good at Travis picking, you don't need to go that slowly often, but this is how you get started.

The third tip is to keep the thumb alternating steadily whenever possible. This is not always possible, especially when you're starting out. It's just going to be task overload to try to keep the thumb going. But when you can, when the melody is easy or nonexistent, or once you get a little bit of chord-melody under your belt, you can just keep that thumb chugging along. So that even, if your head rolls off your shoulders, your thumb is still going. It's, like, the engine of a container ship. Even if the captain falls asleep at the wheel, that engine keeps chugging toward its destination, hopefully, not an iceberg. So having that momentum with your thumb and really instilling this idea that thumb is going to keep a steady metronome-like rhythm, no matter what your fingers do, is going to instill really good habits.

But-- and this is the last tip. --when the going gets tough, abandon rhythm, and you're going to be doing this a lot, maybe all the time during these first stages of learning this song, perhaps, through the whole song at first, where you're not trying to go like this. You're just like pinch, and then, OK, then I do that with my thumb, and then that note. Often, you're going to need to go that slowly in order to play notes correctly, which is what your goal should be. Try to keep flailing to a minimum, so slow things down and abandon rhythm, when necessary, whenever you're learning these difficult passages.

So we're going to start by learning the chord part of the song, the thumb part. This will give you a nice aerial view of the song. And if you look at the tablature, the first measure of "You Are My Sunshine" is what's called a pickup. It's, like, a bit of melody before the verse progression starts. It goes like, (SINGING) you are my-- and then, (SINGING) sunshine. That's when the verse really starts is on the word sunshine, so we're going to skip that first measure as we practice our thumb part. Because it's really part of the melody.

The song starts with four measures of G, and you're going to fret your G chord just with one finger, just with your third finger on the sixth string, third fret, damping the fifth string. You don't need to grab the first string. You're going to want that pinky free for playing melody notes later.

If you've shied away from this G fingering, by the way, now is the time to buckle down and learn it. This is really the best fingering for this song, and we're going to do four measures of G. So I'm going to count, like 1, 2, 3, 4, and then we're going to come in on the thumb, alternating a G chord. 1, 2, 3, 4, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, and now, we're going to switch to a C chord and play that for two measures.

I'll count you in. 1, 2, 3, 4, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, and now, back to G, and play that for two measures. 1, 2, 3, 4, bum, bum, bum, bum. Now, switch back to C for another two measures. 2, 3, 4, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. Back to G for two measures, actually, three measures. 2, 3, 4, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, and now, here is the one measure of D7 in the song.

You really only need to grab the six string, second fret with your thumb. Or if you have a really wide neck, you can grab it with your second finger. That works too. I'm going to use my thumb.

2, 3, 4, bum, bum, bum, and then back to G for one measure, and then we'll end it. 2, 3, 4, bum, and then I'll just have to hit, like, one last bass note to end the song. Let's play that thumb part one more time. This time, I will play all the way through with no stopping, OK?

I'm going to count you in the same way I did last time, where I go, 1, bum, bum, bum, and then we come in. Or rather, I'll do 1, 2, 3, 4. That'll be easier. OK, here we go. 1, 2, 3, 4, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. Keep practicing that thumb part, until you can play through the whole progression without breaking rhythm, at least, to the slow tempo, and once you've got that down, let's work on learning the melody part.

And let's talk, first of all, about what fingers you're going to use. So there's no easy answer for what finger to use for any given melody note in Travis picking. It's, to some degree, intuitive once you become a good chord melody Travis picker. But in this song, anyway, and in the way we're playing "You Are My Sunshine", the finger assignment is dead simple.

You're going to be using your first finger, your pointer finger, for the third string notes, and then your second finger, your middle finger, for the second and first string notes. Then, of course, your thumb is in charge of 6, 5, and 4, right?

Now that which fingers to use, you can start learning the melody. This is what it's going to sound like--

[GUITAR PLAYING]

--and so forth. Now, one tip I have for you is to rest your thumb on the sixth string, while you play the melody. We've got that thumb hopping back and forth on the strings. It's going to be hard for your hand to really know where it is in space. I find it very difficult to hit the right string if I'm just, like, picking individual notes with no other frame of reference. I'm not, like, touching my guitar anywhere.

So anyway, resting my thumb gives me a nice anchor, a nice reference point, and I can pick strings a lot more accurately. So just rest your thumb on the six string, and we're going to start with that pick up measure. Grab a G chord, and throughout this melody part of the lesson, you're still going to be grabbing the chords more or less that are being implied in this part of the song. Because we want to train the left hand to, like, grab notes with the right fingers and everything.

So grab a G chord, and then let's skip the very first note. That's kind of a bass note, and pick the open fourth string with your thumb. And now, you can bring it back and rest it, again, on the sixth string and pick the open third string.

We're using our pointer finger, right? Our pointer finger is assigned to that third string, and then fret the third string, second fret with the second finger, the middle finger of your fretting hand. So this part of the melody and the pickup sounds like this.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

So now, we'll get into the meat of the song, so to speak, and let's put on our Travis vision goggles now that we're done playing melody notes down on the fourth string. So we're going to obscure the fourth, fifth, and sixth string, so that we can just focus on the melody notes here. Make sure that thumb, your picking hand is still resting on the sixth string, and pick a couple open second string notes. And you're going to be using your middle finger of your picking hand.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

And then, in the third measure, you pick that note, again, and then come down to the third string, second fret with your middle finger of your fretting hand. Pick that note with your pointer finger and then go back up to that open second string. So this measure sounds like this, rest.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

And now, in the fourth measure, you're going to pick a couple open third strings, picking that with your pointer finger, right?

[GUITAR PLAYING]

In the fifth measure, you pick an open third string, again, and then fret the third string, second fret. Again, use your middle finger of your fretting hand and an open second string of your middle finger of your picking hand. So that measure sounds like this.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

And now, in the sixth measure, we're going to grab a C chord and pick that second string, and you're going to be fretting it on the first fret, grabbing a C. So you don't need to do anything special with your fretting hand. Pick that with your middle finger and then an open first string, also, with your middle finger. That measure sounds like this, and in the seventh measure, hit that open first string again.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

Hop back down to the second string, and this time, you're going to throw your pinkie in on the second string, third fret. Pick that with your middle finger.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

Lift your pinkie, so you go back to just a normal C shape.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

Pick that second string, first fret, so this measure sounds like this.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

And now, we go back to a G chord and pick the open second string with that middle finger.

In the ninth measure, you're going to pick the open third string with our pointer finger. Second fret, and again, you're going to use your middle finger of your fretting hand.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

And then open second string, make sure to switch to your middle finger of your picking hand for that one. Switch back to a C chord, and pick the second string and the open first string.

And in the 11th measure, pick that open string, again, and throw that pinkie back in on the second string, third fret. Pick that with the middle finger and lift your pinkie, so that you're back to fretting that first fret and pick that with your middle finger.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

So you might notice that this 11th and 10th measure sounds the same as the sixth and seventh measures. In fact, this whole line is very similar to the line before it in the tablature. So this 11th measure sounds like this.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

And now, in the 12th measure, go back to a G chord, hit the open second string, and now, hit the open third string. We used our middle finger and then our index finger for those two notes, right? It sounds like this.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

In the 13th measure, hit an open third string, again, and fret the second fret, third string. Use your middle finger, again, so it's like this.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

And now, in the 14th measure, hit the open second string with your middle finger.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

And then fret the second string, first fret, while still grabbing a G chord. So this measure sounds like this.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

And now, we're going to grab that D/F#, so grab the sixth string with your thumb and the third string, second fret with your middle finger. And pick that third string with your pointer finger. Pick it, again, and then the open second string with your middle finger. So this measure sounds like this.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

And then go back to a G shape and pick the open third string with your pointer finger.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

So that gives you an overview of what you're picking fingers should be doing playing the melody of "You Are My Sunshine", and I would recommend reviewing that once or twice more to make sure what fingers play what notes, and also, any variations on the chord shapes that you're making with your left hand, like when you fret that third string, second fret. Make sure you're using your middle finger for that. Once you feel like you have internalized what fingers are doing what in this section, then you can move on to the next part of the lesson, where you start combining the thumb part and the finger part into one glorious whole.

The song starts with a pickup, as I mentioned, and the pickup is a little funky in that the very first melody note of "You Are My Sunshine", (SINGING) you, is lower than every other melody note in the whole song. (SINGING) You are my sunshine. All the other melody notes are up on the third, second, and first strings.

But that first note is actually an open fourth string note, so that note does double duty a little bit when we're playing this song. We're actually going to kind of do a little alternating bass with our thumb to start the pickup, and that second note and the alternating bass is actually the first note of our melody. If that made no sense, don't worry. You'll pick up on it as we play it.

So let's start by planting before we play. This might be a good chance to check in on your basic hand technique, by the way, hold a lemon, tilt your wrist, make a cross, plant before you play. So put your thumb on the sixth string, first finger on the third string, second finger on the second string, and then we're just going to alternate two notes over a G chord. Grab a G chord, and you don't need to grab with the pinky, though, just the third finger. And you're going to go sixth string, and then fourth string, and then play the open third string with your first finger, of course, and then second fret, third string. Fret that with the middle finger, OK? So that's the pickup in the first measure.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

You hear how that sounds? So practice that a bit, and then the next measure, number two, has a couple pinches in it. It goes-- It starts with a pinch on the sixth string and second string. Remember, use your middle finger for that second string.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

And then alternate to the fourth string with your thumb, and then the same thing for this third and fourth beats, pinch, and then open fourth string again. So the whole thing sounds like this.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

(SINGING) Sunshine.

So that's the second measure. Work on that for a little bit. The third measure sounds like this.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

So we start with just sixth string, third fret and play with our thumb, and then we're going to pinch the open fourth and second strings. And, again, we're using our middle finger, right? Because we're playing the second string. It sounds like this.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

And then our thumb goes back down to the sixth string, but now, we drop in our middle finger on the third string, second fret. And we pinch the third string and sixth string. Then we go back to that pinch we just did on the fourth and second strings, so it sounds like this.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

This is the most complicated move we made so far in our chord-melody, so take plenty of time to get that in your muscle memory. And now, for the fourth measure, we're going to pinch the sixth string and third string. So now, we're using our first finger, right? The first finger's in charge of the third string, so pinch those two strings.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

And then thumb alternates to the fourth string, and then you do the same thing.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

So this is kind of like the second measure, how the first half of the measure is identical to the second half. The whole thing sounds like this.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

And then, in the next measure, measure five, this is what it sounds like.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

This is that (SINGING) you make me happy part, so we're going to start with the sixth string. And then we're going to pinch fourth and third strings, and this is where all your work, tilting your wrist, and making a cross will pay off, hopefully, when you pick these two neighboring strings that are open--

[GUITAR PLAYING]

--like that. Hopefully, your thumb and your pointer finger miss. This is where, if you're not using good technique, the fingers will bang into each other with bad results. So hopefully, that went OK, and then we're going to go back to the sixth string with our thumb and fret the second fret, third string with our middle finger like that. Then thumb alternates back up to the fourth string, and we pinch along with the second string open. So this whole thing sounds like this again.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

OK, another tough measure there, so keep working on that, until you've got it in your muscle memory.

In the sixth measure, we switch to a C chord. Grab the whole chord and plant your thumb on the fifth string, and we're going to start with playing the second string with our middle finger, of course. We're going to pinch the fifth and second strings like this.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

And then thumb alternates to the fourth string, and then our thumb goes back to the fifth string. And our middle finger pops up to the first string for our first, first string melody note of the song. It sounds like this, and then our thumb alternates the fourth string again. And then, in the seventh measure, we play the fifth string bass note, again, and then we pinch four and one with our thumb and our middle finger.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

And now, our thumb comes back down to the fifth string, and we're going to throw in our pinky on the second string, third fret and pinch five and two.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

Thumb comes back up to the fourth string, pinky releases, and we pinch four and two.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

So that whole measure sounds like this.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

Isn't that cool? And then, in the eighth measure, we're going to switch back to a G chord. We just need to grab the bass note. You don't need to fret with your pinky, and we're going to pinch six and two.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

And then our thumb just alternates for the rest of the measure, and also, one more beat in the next measure, in measure nine.

Now, we're halfway through the song. I should point out, if I were teaching this to you in a private lesson, this is about as far as we would get in one day. We may not even get this far. So if you want, this might be a good time to stop and just review what we've just worked on, because this is a lot of material to take in. So if you want to take a week just to get to know this first half of the song, it's probably about the pace I would go at with a private student.

So whether you want to forge on here and you feel like you can absorb this amount of material, or whether you're coming back this lesson a week hence, either way, let's continue with measure nine. So as I said, you hit that sixth string.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

And then you're going to pinch the open fourth and third strings. Again, we're pinching neighboring strings. Hopefully, you're making a cross, and those fingers miss each other. Thumb comes back down to the sixth string, and you're going to fret the third string, second fret, and then pinch four and two with your thumb and your middle finger. And now, in the 10th measure, go back to a C chord, and this is identical to the measure above it. What is it? The sixth measure.

So you start by pinching five and two, alternate up to the fourth string, and then pitch five and one. Alternate to the fourth string, and then, in the next measure, hit the bass note, again, and then pinch four and one, one more time. And then here's that move, where we bring our pinky on the second string, third fret, pinch five and two, and then pinch four and two, and release our pinky. And now, go back to a G chord, and this one is almost like the measure above it.

Pinch six and two, alternate up to the fourth string, and this time, pinch six and three. And remember, use our first finger now. The first finger is in charge of the third string, so pinch six and three, and then thumb alternates up to the fourth string. And we're going to start with another bass note here and alternate up to the fourth string, and then pinch six and three with our first finger again.

And now, we're going to alternate up to the fourth string and bring that middle finger back in on the third string, second fret, and pinch neighboring strings. They're on four and three, and now, lift your second finger and pinch six and two. Alternate up to the fourth string, back down to the sixth string, pinch four and two, and you're going to fret the second string, first fret with your first finger, of course.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

And now, we're at that one measure of D7, and for this, you really just need to fret two notes, your thumb, and on the six string, second fret, and then your middle finger on the second string-- or excuse me. --the third string, second fret. So you're just going with like that with your thumb, like that with your middle finger, both on the second fret. Pinch those strings six and three and alternate up to the fourth string. Pinch, again, and then lift your middle finger, because it's probably in the way, and pinch four and two. And then come back to a G shape and pinch six and three, and then just alternate the rest of the measure and end on the sixth string, third fret.

Remember, as you work on this piece, that you have two main tools in your toolbox for working on complex, difficult pieces of music. The first one is to slow down, which I know I've told you a bazillion times, but it bears repeating. Because people always play too fast, so really slow down. And then the other one is to simplify, and in this case, we've already simplified by dividing up the task of learning the thumb part and then learning the finger parts.

You can also simplify by just working on short sections of music. That's why we went through the song measure by measure, and I recommend that you practice the song, you learn the song measure by measure also. Just work on one measure at a time, get it under your fingers, repeat it a bunch, then move on to the next measure.

Once you've learned each measure individually, you can start stitching them together, and what's coming up next are a couple of practice videos, one at a very slow tempo and then the other one at a moderate, normal tempo. So when you've learned how to stitch your different measures together and you can play, at least, some of the song without breaking rhythm, you can graduate to trying to play along with me. And eventually, hopefully, you get to the point where you can play along with me in the performance track at a moderate tempo.

So this is a section of the course that takes a lot of work. I know it's kind of arduous. The siege warfare approach to learning music is slow and difficult, but, oh, the rewards are so great. So hang in there, good luck, and I'll be cheering you on. All right, take care.

“You Are My Sunshine” Song Lesson

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