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The Good Side

by Troye Sivan • Lesson #125 • Jan 22, 2018

About this lesson

In this lesson I’ll show you how to play The Good Side by Troye Sivan on acoustic guitar - including chords, tabs, strumming, and capo instructions. This tutorial explains the 4 chords needed, over and over again, for the entire song. While a pretty straightforward progression, there is one interesting technique to dive into - which is leaving the high E-string open for all the chords, which results in a unique sound.

Capo 2nd fret

I recommend playing this with capo 2nd fret, which is how Troye Sivan (or his guitarist) plays it. It allows you to capture the same “high E string left open” sound that is characteristic of this song. That said, I also show a no capo version in my video above.

Chord progression for the entire song

Quite simply, with capo on the 2nd fret, this progression is repeated for the whole song!

C   Em   F   G

Without a capo, these are:

D  F#m   G   A

Chords tabs w/ capo 2

Here’s how it’s played on the album - you can also see the guitarist using these chords during Sivan’s SNL performance from January 2018. The main thing to note here is the high E string is left open for all the chords. Also note how the G chord is a slid-up version of the F chord (i.e., slide up 2 frets using the same chord shape). For the F and the G, I wrap my thumb around to play the low E string for each chord. This isn’t required, but is nice if you can pull it off.

E –––0––––0–––––0––––0–––
B –––1––––0–––––1––––3–––
G –––0––––0–––––2––––4–––
D –––2––––2–––––3––––5–––
A –––3––––2–––––3––––5–––
E ––––––––0––––(1)––(3)––
     C    Em    F    G

If you have trouble with the F and G voicings above, try these variants:

E –––0––––0–––––0––––0–––
B –––1––––0–––––1––––3–––
G –––0––––0–––––2––––4–––
D –––2––––2–––––3––––5–––
A –––3––––2––––––––––––––
E ––––––––0––––––––––––––
     C    Em    F    G

Chords with no capo

If you want to play it without a capo, use the chords below – and note how the 2nd fret of the high E-string is used in all chords. Again, this matches the droning note you hear played on the album. Technically, the G is a Gmaj7, and the A is an Aadd6.

E –––2––––2–––––2––––2––––
B –––3––––2–––––0––––2––––
G –––2––––2–––––0––––2––––
D –––0––––4–––––0––––2––––
A ––––––––4–––––x––––0––––
E ––––––––2–––––3–––––––––
     D   F#m    G    A

Strumming pattern

I prefer a “DOWN down-up-down-up” that repeats 4 times for each chord. Then, switch to the next chord and repeat it again 4 times. You’ll want to accent the first down strum of each sequence. Here’s how I’d write it out:

1 + 2 + 3 +   1 + 2 + 3 +   1 + 2 + 3 +   1 + 2 + 3 +
D   d u d u   D   d u d u   D   d u d u   D   d u d u
>             >             >             >

If you have trouble, I recommend starting with playing only the first down strum of each 3-count sequence:

1 + 2 + 3 +   1 + 2 + 3 +   1 + 2 + 3 +   1 + 2 + 3 +   
D             D             D             D

And from there, if you want, you could also just do a “up down up” to end each 3-count sequence. Which would look like this:

1 + 2 + 3 +   1 + 2 + 3 +   1 + 2 + 3 +   1 + 2 + 3 +
D     u d u   D     u d u   D     u d u   D     u d u
>             >             >             >

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