Fast Car Guitar Lesson

One of the best indicators of an extremely successful song is that other well-known artists want to release their own cover version of it. Tracy Chapman's 'Fast Car' is a perfect example of this - and who could blame Luke Combs for wanting to put his own spin on this beautiful track?

This is a perfect improver level track, as it will most likely introduce a few new techniques and concepts to already familiar shapes and patterns. Join Thomas in the video below to get a detailed breakdown of two different sections of the track:

Main Riff

This is the section that makes this song so immediately recognisable - it'll be hard not to loop it for hours once you've learned it! But before we do anything, we need to make sure that our capo is on the second fret. As Thomas mentions in the video, we're going to refer to the second fret (with the capo) as the '0' fret - so, when I mention the seventh fret later in the lesson, we're going to be playing the 9th fret on the board. I've provided a little graphic below to make this more visual:

If you've already watched the video, or if you're listening to it while reading this, you've probably caught Thomas saying that we're only going to be using the E, A, G and B strings. To successfully do this, we're going to have to drop the pick, and place our thumb on the A string, our index finger on the G string, and our middle finder on the B string. This will create a claw-like position of your hand. If this is a completely new technique to you, I'd recommend practicing the following patterns below to get used to this new right-hand plucking style.

Once you've become comfortable plucking individual strings with the right-hand, you'll find yourself eager to get on with the left hand! Before we look at the four different chords we'll be playing throughout the track, I want to point out that the main riff uses the open G string for all four chord positions.

The first two chords are probably going to be very familiar to most of you - you're going to play a C major to G major shape. Remember - even though we're playing the C and G shapes, we're actually sonically getting a D major and A major chord because of the placement of the capo on the second fret. Technically, you only need to fret the notes from the chords on the A and B strings (which is how Thomas is playing it in the video). However, there is nothing at all wrong with playing the entire chord shape, if anything, it just gives you a bit of a safety net if you accidentally pluck the wrong string.

Below are the chord charts for both C and G major. The notes highlighted in pink are the notes that are being played in the plucking pattern, and the ones in black can be omitted.

I want to take a moment to quickly highlight the first chord of the pattern! To get the signature melody of the main riff, we actually need to start with a slightly altered voicing of the C major shape - we need to play a C major 7 shape. To do this, you simply need to remove our index finger from the first fret of the B string. After plucking this slightly tweaked shape, you'll need to hammer-on the first fret of the B string - creating the 'normal' C major shape. To finish the phrase, you'll once again again need to take your index finger off the first fret, and pluck the C major 7 shape.

Let's take a very quick look and understand why this is called a 'major 7' chord. Essential, a normal major triad (chord), such as C major, is made of three notes - C E and G. These are the 1st, 3rd, and 5th interval of the C major scale. By adding the B (open B string), we're adding the 7th degree of the C major scale - turning it into a major 7 chord.

The next two chord shapes needed to complete the pattern are E minor and D major. Remember, because we have our capo on the second fret, these chords actually sound as an F minor and E major. To get the right voicing to play along with the track, we're going to play these chords slightly higher up the neck than the very familiar open-chord positions. These two chords would usually be played as barre chords, but luckily for us, we only need two fingers to play them, as we need to keep the G string ringing throughout. Check out the chord charts below to replicate these chords:

Intro Variation

Very quickly before we move onto the chorus section - the main riff you've just learned is played for the intro, with a slight tweak. We're going to make use of our pinky on the B string over both the E minor and D major chord.

After plucking the E minor shape, you're going to want to play the 10th fret on the B string with your pinky, and release it again to the 8th fret - giving you the pattern of 8 - 10 - 8 on the B string. We're going to do the same for the D major shape by playing the 8th fret on the B string, giving us the pattern of 7 - 8 - 7 on the B string. These are both played as triplets. Thomas demonstrates this variation at 3:00 in the video for you to take a closer look and listen to.

Just because I'm a bit of a sucker for theory, I'm going to very quickly explain what's happening here! The notes played on the A string are the root of the chord (E and D), and the notes on the B string (G and F#) are their respective thirds. So, what we're doing is raising the third degrees to the fourth degrees, briefly passing through a sus4 chord for both E and D! Told you it'd be quick...

Chorus

The chorus section is easiest remembered by breaking it into three smaller parts. You'll be pleased to know that we're going to be using the same four chords, and this time, all in their open positions!

Before we jump into the three sections, let's take a closer look at the strumming pattern that is used through the entire chorus. The strumming pattern is repeated every bar, and is broken into eighth notes as below:

Part 1

For this first part, we're going to play one bar of each chord in the following order - C, G, Em, D. Practice the transitions between each chord with the strumming pattern to get the right feel and flow of the track. This is the perfect opportunity to become comfortable with the strumming pattern, as the next two parts see some slightly faster chord changes!

Part 2

This second part still uses the same exact strumming pattern, with a slight change in the chord progression and harmonic rhythm. If you're unfamiliar with the term 'harmonic rhythm' - it simply means the speed or rhythm that the chords change.

The chord progression for this section is C, Em to D, and is played over just two bars. To squeeze three chords into two bars, we need to play both the C and Em chords in the same bar - which is what Thomas calls a 'split-bar' in the video. The image below will show you where to change chords over the strumming pattern.

Part 3

And finally, we've made it to the very last bit needed to play this stunning track!! You'll also be pleased to know that this last little bit is only one bar long! All we need to do is create another split-bar (using the same strumming pattern), but this time, between C and D. This beautifully takes us back to the main riff, where these sections can be repeated to play along to the entire track!