Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) Guitar Lesson – Green Day


In this acoustic guitar lesson I will teach you how to play Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) by Green Day in it's entirety.

Released in 1997 on the group's Nimrod album, "Time Of Your Life" went on to great mainstream success. I has since become Green Day's only crossover hit from that era. Even almost 20 years after it's release, "Time Of Your Life" still strikes a chord with every new generation of music fans. Speaking of chords, let's learn them shall we? 🙂

The intro of "Time Of Your Life" consists of a three chord progression played in an arpeggio picked style. The pattern being used for this picking is consistent throughout, making it easy to perform it just like the album. Concentrate on the timing of the notes within this picking pattern. Some of them are held longer than others.

For all of the arpeggio picking patterns, make sure you continue to hold the chords down for as long as possible to create the fullest sound possible. You want all of those notes ringing together.

Guitarist/singer Billie Joe Armstrong continues this arpeggio picking pattern through the pre-chorus chords followed by the chorus chords. Just like in the intro/verse chord progression, he is using basic open position chords so there probably won't be much of a problem for any guitarists with even limited experience on the guitar.

When the string section comes in, Billie Joe Armstrong starts to play full strumming patterns with the right hand. He is still playing the exact same chords he did before through all three chord progressions, but all of them are strummed now.

So after you have learned the beginning of the song you will then know all of the chords to the rest of the song as well. 🙂 All you will need to do it simply try and master both the arpeggio and strumming pattern and you will be good to go.

There are times later in the song when Billie Joe Armstrong will switch to the arpeggio picking pattern briefly only to return to the full strumming pattern. You will want to listen to the original recording enough so that you know where these changes occur.

Have fun guys! This will be a quick one for most players.

Carl...

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Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) Guitar Lesson - Green Day

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