Whole Wide World
Strum Song #1:
Whole Wide World (chorus excerpt by Wreckless Eric)
Welcome to your first strumming song. For this lesson I have chosen a song (or a riff rather, but who’s keeping track!) that uses two out of our three beginning chords, the E and A–we can save that D chord for next time. This is an excerpt of the chorus from the song “Whole Wide World” by Wreckless Eric used in the movie Stranger Than Fiction. Do you own a sea foam green Stratocaster? Well, you should…
You will notice that this chart is quite similar to the “chord changes” lesson posted earlier in this curriculum with a few small modifications. We will still be strumming between our E and A chords, but when we apply the strumming principles (which you all should be working on as a practice supplement by the way) your hand would pass over the third beat two times, once on the downstrum and once on the upstrum. This rhythm of “down, down, down-up, down” is played over the first four bars. The fifth bar contains six beats but it’s really just strumming the same rhythm as before, then adding two additional downstrums to complete the measure.
Tips:
-Listen to the chorus of the song a lot (if you have it) or watch the video above.
-Listen for when the chords change over and over until you know what should happen before it does. Begin to trust your ears.
-Listen to the words in relation to the chord changes. The words delay that final A chord—a songwriting decision on Eric’s part–that’s why there are 2 extra strums in the 5th bar!
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