Zombie is an easy guitar song with a straightforward chord progression and strumming pattern that are ideal for beginning players. Additionally, only four basic shapes need to be memorized – E minor being one of them!
Basics
Zombie has an extremely accessible chord progression that’s simple and straightforward for beginners to learn, making it one of the easiest songs to pick up on guitar. All chord shapes repeat themselves quickly so once mastered they should remain easily memorable.
This song is set in E minor, which is an extremely popular key for acoustic guitar songs. To play chords effectively in this key and stay within its rhythm as you practice playing them.
Take some time to practice singing along while you play your song, as this can help you better recognize and fix any errors or missed timing issues. Use the Roadie Coach app as a great resource that provides instantaneous feedback on both singing and strumming abilities – and make the learning process both faster and more fun!
Chords
Beginners can start to learn chords by practicing major and minor triads – each chord having three unique notes – such as C, E and G for major chords or A, D and F for minor ones. These basic chords are based on scales; knowing musical theory (especially scales) is helpful, but not essential when learning chords.
Once familiar with triads, intermediate guitarists move on to seventh chords. Seventh chords contain similar notes as their basic major and minor counterparts but add another interval that alters their sound; major seventh chords typically consist of three notes with P5 intervals while minor seventh chords consist of M3 chords with an additional M6 interval.
E minor and Cmaj7 chords are two of the easiest chords to learn, particularly for beginners. If you are just getting into chords, try switching between these two for several minutes until you find one you are more comfortable playing. Chord diagrams usually display them with either an “X” or an “O”, where Xs indicate mutes while Os are ones you can play freely.
Rhythm
Zombie is an effortless guitar song to learn for beginners. Featuring just four simple chords that repeat throughout, making this an accessible way to start. Furthermore, its simple strumming pattern can become second nature quickly.
Start out slow when first learning this song; focus on memorising just the chord progression rather than rhythm right away. This will allow your brain to reset between movements of each progression; once familiar with one (for instance E minor), memorize it completely before moving onto Cmaj7 chord progressions.
Start by practicing fingerings for these two shapes, then try strumming each string eight times down each string until you can do it without stopping for short intervals – this will help develop sync between your hands, chords, and strumming pattern.
Strumming
Strumming is unquestionably one of the key elements of guitar playing, since most songs involve strumming patterns as their foundation.
If you want to play songs like Zombie, or any other, it is imperative that you know the correct strumming pattern.
Typically speaking, there are two strumming patterns; down strums and up strums. A down strum occurs when your hand moves downward across all six strings simultaneously.
Up strumming involves moving your hand back upwards across the strings in an upward stroke, being careful not to hit all strings at once as this would create stiff and monotone strumming patterns.
For better timing, use a metronome or jam track to practice this first strum pattern. As you play each beat, count out loud as you strumming – “1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and”. Aim to hit downstrums on every beat.