Counting Stars Guitar Lesson – OneRepublic
As one of the most popular songs of the past decade, "Counting Stars" by OneRepublic certainly needs no introduction. But I am gonna give it one anyway! Haha
Released in 2013 off their Native album, "Counting Stars" quickly topped the charts all over the world. It is basically a pop song with strong folk elements incorporating capoed acoustic guitars throughout.
In this Counting Stars guitar lesson I will show you how to play all of the guitar parts for this modern pop/rock smash hit.
You will need to tune your guitar to standard tuning and capo it at the 4th fret to follow along with this lesson and the original recording.
Throughout most of the song, except for the second half of the chorus, you will need to use a finger-picking approach to properly play the different picking patterns.
The beginning of the song uses a finger-picking pattern that moves around quite a lot, but the slower tempo makes it relatively easy to play.
It is once the full band kicks in that the speed gets ramped up quite a bit and you will be playing a straight 8th note finger-picking pattern. The pattern itself isn't very difficult to play except for the quick little 16th note burst at the end of each measure. That is definitely a picking pattern that you will want to isolate and practice in rhythm over and over again in a loop to try and master it.
During the chorus that short 16th note is removed as you just have to play the straight 8th feel for the first half, then strum the chords for the second half. Because of this I would say the chorus is probably the easiest part of the song to play.
I think this is a great song for any intermediate level and above player. It is truly a modern acoustic pop/rock classic!
Carl...
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