New Song: Fast Car for Guitar, Piano, Ukulele, and Singing

Let’s play this classic acoustic tune – a great song to add to your repertoire! This song has a nice and simple structure, with just two main parts: verse, and chorus. Notice the verse uses a simple 2-bar loop, and the repetition gives it a relaxing, hypnotic feel. “Fast Car” is available in Yousician for Guitar, Piano, Ukulele, and Singing.

Fast Car for Guitar
by: James Neilson, Music Education Designer for Guitar

In the basic riff exercise (level 2) you’ll follow the bass line, which is a great basic way to play along with the song. It’s all in 2nd position, on the A and D strings. Look out for the tricky “off-beat” rhythms, and focus carefully on your timing.

The cowboy chords exercise (level 5) lets you play along using some familiar chords: C, G, Em, D. Look out for the syncopated rhythms, and try to use the correct strumming pattern as shown. You can use a capo on fret 2, or hit ‘transpose’ to play without a capo.

The fingerpicking exercise (level 7) will get you to play the full acoustic guitar arrangement. It uses fingerpicking in the verse sections, and strumming in the chorus – you can just strum with your fingers in this bit, rather than trying to quickly grab a pick. Remember all fret numbers are relative to the capo, so “3” means “3 frets up from the capo”. This gets tricky to count on higher frets, so take your time.

Fast Car for Piano
by: Arttu Juntunen, Music Education Designer for Piano and Singing

In the melody exercise (level 2) you get to play the key notes the band is playing to accompany the singer. First, you can check you know where F# and G# are on your piano, and put your thumb on E. You can keep your hand in this position throughout the exercise.

With the solo piano exercise (level 5) you get to play the instrumental melody in the intro and the essential notes in the vocal melody. I recommend you start by practicing the right-hand melody separately, as you need to move your hand around more. You can play this arrangement also without Yousician. Try if you can play the intro without the app.

In the accompaniment exercise (level 5) you can practice two different ways of playing chords. In the intro and the verse, you’ll be playing only two notes with your right hand, instead of the usual three. Most often these notes are the third and the bass note of the chord, forming a 6th interval. It has a beautiful emotional sound! In the chorus, you’ll be playing chords with all three notes, which have a fuller and stronger sound.

Fast Car for Ukulele
by: Vellu Halkosalmi, Music Education Designer for Bass and Ukulele

In the basic melody exercise (level 3) you’ll follow the melody notes from the rhythm guitar part during the verse, and the top note of the chords during the chorus. This exercise is a great workout for playing notes on three strings and playing with your pinky.

The chords exercise (level 7) focuses on mastering the moveable C-chord shape. Play all the 3 top strings with your index finger, and the bottom string with your pinky when fretting the D and the E chords.

Fast Car for Singing
by: Sonja Patrikainen, Music Education Designer for Singing

This is an excellent song for practicing a speech like natural tone. Imagine you’re just telling a story as you would to a good friend. You don’t have to focus so much on singing technique, just use your natural speaking tone.