"Won't be Home" - - Strumming and Singing

Hi Nevets... You've been playing longer than I have, so I have a hard time commenting on this one, but I'll give it a try anyway!  I do think, like Southernrockr says, if you try hard enough you can do it!  It may take a while, but you can!  My biggest suggestion would be to start out at your own speed; slow this song down!  I would try first to figure out that strumming pattern, then do the changes with the pattern.  Then work on speeding it up a little... maybe not quite as fast as he is, but a little so that it sounds something like the song to you.  THEN work on adding in the words.  The lyrics don't seem to go "easily" with the rhythm so it will be quite tricky.  May I suggest once you get the song down at a speed you like, record it, then try to just sing along with it?  If you can handle that, then try playing and singing along with YOUR recorded version at YOUR speed.  Then just work up from there once you can get the lyrics where they belong. 

I had to do that with a couple songs I've played.  There were times when I almost gave up as I swore I'd never be able to play and sing at the same time as the timing/rhythm just FELT so far off... but once you get it all together, it sounds AWESOME and you'll be gosh darn proud of yourself!!

Use a metronome.  Anytime you hear boom, it's a down strum. Any time you hear da-da it's down-up.  Any time you hear da-da-da its down-up-up.  He uses down, down-up, and down-up-up in different combinations through out.  Get a metronome and practice playing one down stroke, one down stroke and one upstroke, and one down stroke and two upstrokes all in the same time.  Once you can get the timing of doing the different strokes each within a single beat, you'll be well on your way.  As far as how to combine down, down-up, and down-up-up, I think that's going to be more of a feel thing.  But if you try to play it that fast immediately, you will fail and you will continue to fail. 

Also, you need to be able to make the chord changes smoothly and cleanly in time with the music.  If you cannot do that, then you need to pull that metronome out again and set it slow and make the chord changes IN TIME.  As you learn to make the chord changes in time, slowly increase the speed on the metronome and continue to practice.  It may take thousands of times doing each chord change to get it ingrained into your fingers so that you make it in time with the song rather than in your own time. 

Rhythm is FAR more important than accuracy of the notes.  If you mess up the rhythm, you've messed up the song. 

If you want to play fast like that guy, then you need to start slow and work your way up to it.  You need the muscle memory.  If you are trying to play fast like that right from the get-go, you will never, ever succeed at cleanly playing that song because you will be practicing errors in timing and chord fingerings.  Do it only as quickly as you can do it cleanly and accurately.  Accuracy first.  Speed will come. 

- Zurf

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