Practicing Riptide is going better!

I’ve found a video that walks me through the chords, strumming pattern, and timing needed to play Riptide; although, the guy goes a little fast for my current level.

This is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFBFp6do9WE

My biggest struggle right now is switching from Am to G quickly enough for the song. For Riptide, you only perform one set of the strumming pattern on G (D-D-UDU), and I find that by the time I’ve got my fingers properly placed on G, I should already be moving onto the next chord (C). While I need to keep working on this, the last individualized learning class we had really helped me. Anita showed me the proper way to transition from Am to G (since I was originally using the wrong finger placement for G) and this has made the move from Am to G so much easier!

At this point in my learning,  I’m not sure I will be able to sing along to this song as I play… As much as I would like to sing, it uses all of my brainpower to simply keep up the proper strumming pattern, and switch from chord to chord at the right time. For “You Are My Sunshine”, it really helped me keep timing to sing, but that was a much simpler, and slower song so it was easier for me to add in the extra singing component.

Perhaps as the strumming patterns and chords become more natural to me, I will try to sing along with the song as well!