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Strummy Walk-Downs in the Key of C

Description

Here’s an overview of perhaps the most common walk-down in popular guitar! Specifically, the transition from C to G/B to Am to G — where the bass note of each chord is emphasized (with a single pluck) before strumming the chord. You might also see this walk-down written up using the chord C/B, which I’ll explain. Chord names aside, this is without question a guitar walk-down you’ll want to have in your bag of tricks.

Main Video

Instructional PDF 3 pages

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Follow along with the print-friendly PDF!

It includes all of my notes for this lesson, allowing you to follow along at your own pace. You're free to download, print, and share the PDF across your devices.

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Lesson Discussion

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Additional Examples of this Technique

Here’s an extended video tutorial, where I take the walk-downs shown in the main lesson and guide you through three different example riffs where they’re put to use. My goal here is to show you some of the subtle differences in context you might encounter when playing these walk-downs.

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Slow Playthroughs of Each Exercise

Exercise 1A — slow-paced walk-down, one chord per measure. Here, the walking-down bass notes always fall on the “1” count. You could even stay on each chord for two measures if you want to space out the chord changes.

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Exercise 1B — same chords as the previous exercise, but with a “fast” walk-downs. That is, two chords per measure. Here, the descending bass notes fall on the “1” and “3” counts. This is a common scenario you’ll run into!

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Exercise 2 — this one mixes it up. We’ll be in 6/8 time and playing fingerstyle. This riff embraces the 1st fret note on the second string, which is used in all but one of the chord shapes.

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