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Wondering Why

by Red Clay Strays • Lesson #557 • Jul 13, 2024

In today’s lesson I’ll teach you how to play Wondering Why, the 2023 hit from Red Clay Strays. This song evokes the blues-rock of Chris Stapleton, with a hint of Southern flavoring you might hear in Lynyrd Skynyrd or even Elvis. Musically, the song uses an 8-chord bluesy progression for the verse and chorus sections. The band builds this up throughout, ensuring things never get too stale or predictable. I’ll walk you through it all: the chords, the rhythm & strumming, and show plenty of tips of mixing things up with the rhythmic dynamics. Let’s get into it!

  • 0:00 Lesson Intro
  • 1:13 Verse & Chorus Chords
  • 3:35 Strumming & Rhythm
  • 7:17 Power Chords
  • 7:56 Avoiding Barre Chords
  • 10:10 Acoustic Version
  • 12:05 Arpeggiated Picking
  • 13:51 Bridge

Practice Notes 2 pages

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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Here's a print-friendly PDF I made with all of my practice notes for this lesson. This lets you follow along with everything I show in video tutorial at your own pace.

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Play-Along Practice Track

As a bonus to accompany my main video lesson, here’s a 7 minute jam track I made to help you learn this song. It repeats the 8-measure chord progression used in the verse & chorus of this song, allowing you to play along at a steady tempo. You can work on your strumming, clean chord changes, or even soloing.

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An audio version of this same jam track is also available to members of Song Notes Premium — it displays here when you're an active member and signed in. Members can download the audio file for offline use.


Audio-only version - download, or press the play button below to stream:


In much of my lesson, I use palm muting with my strumming hand — which dampens all the strings. In certain cases, such as with this song, this works wonders — so check out my video lesson below for some tips on learning this. You can use this while strumming or playing lead — it’s absolutely worth learning!

Palm muting basics

★ Instructional PDF

I demonstrate an easier way to play F# minor in my tutorial… with no barring required. If you’d like a deep-dive into that specific chord voicing, check out this video. I do think this particular voicing tends to work better for playing fingerstyle, but provided you’re careful with muting the 4th and 5th string – you can make it work for this song too.

Fingerstyle Chord Tip: F#m Without Barring

★ Instructional PDF

Looking for an overview of the chords in the Key of E major? Check out this video, which gives a lay of the land of what to expect when playing in this key.

Learning Chords in Key of E

★ Instructional PDF

As I note in my main tutorial, you can use capo 2 if you’d like to use easier chord shapes all-around when learning this song (D, Em, G, A). For a breakdown of how exactly a capo changes the chords you’ll use, see this video.

Using a Capo to Change a Song's Chords

★ Instructional PDF

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