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Strumming Guide for "Fast Car" (Tracy Chapman & Luke Combs)

Lesson #567 • Oct 24, 2024


In today’s lesson I want to return to the 1988 classic Fast Car and walk you through a few ways to approach strumming & rhythm. For that chorus section in particular, I’ve gotten several emails asking about how to go about strumming things — given that’s the only part of the song where recognizable intro & verse riff isn’t played.

In this lesson, I’ll show three ways to approach strumming, starting with something easy-going and building up from there. You can combine these patterns I show, or modify them into something that works per your own tastes.

  • 0:00 Lesson Overview
  • 1:07 Why This Song is Tricky
  • 2:24 Easy-going Strum
  • 5:15 Moderate Strum
  • 6:52 16th Note Strum
  • 7:50 Practice Track Preview

Instructional PDF 1 page

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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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.

To download the PDF, upgrade to premium or log in.

Lesson Discussion

Jump in the conversation with other members of the Song Notes community! Post a comment about this lesson, ask a question, or even upload a video of your progress. All skill levels welcome!

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Jump in the conversation with other members of the Song Notes community! Post a comment about this lesson, ask a question, or even upload a video of your progress. All skill levels welcome!

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Play-Along Practice Track

To help you practice the strums I teach in my video, I made the following practice track. This moves through the chord progressions you’ll need at a slightly slower tempo (88bpm) compared to Fast Car’s album recording (100bpm). The entire sequence repeats 4-5 times, giving you a nice bite-size track to use in your practice sessions. You can use any of the strums I teach when playing along with this video — and likewise, you can use any custom patterns of your own, should you prefer.

Note, this track begins by me counting in two full measures — use this to help you sync up with the beat.

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Strumming Demonstrations (Video)

Here’s a few short videos of me demonstrating each of the strums I teach. Each of these is played over the practice track (available just above), where I play over each progression one time. Refer to these if you’d like to see, and hear, what these strums all sound like in uninterrupted context.

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Strumming Demonstrations (Audio)

In addition to the videos above, I recorded these audio clips of each of the strumming patterns. These all included a two measure count-in, which help you settle & sync into the beat. These are also strummed on muted strings, to help you focus purely on the strumming motion itself. See my video demonstrations (above) to see and hear each strum move through all the chord progressions.

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Easy-Going Strum:

Moderate Strum:

Full (16th Note) Strum:

Check out lesson #494, linked below — where I break down the main Fast Car riff step by step. You can indeed play this riff during all intro & verse sections, or skip it altogether and use any of the strums I demonstrate in my main tutorial above.

Learning the "Fast Car" Intro Riff, Step by Step

★ Instructional PDF

If you need help strumming with a light touch, check out the lesson below. This is especially helpful for the “moderate strum” I show (above), which uses all down-strums.

Strumming with a Light Touch

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