'Behind Blue Eyes' tricking rhythm guitar parts

[To Need a Woman]

I've been playing this at open mics for a while and have a couple of questions about it. In comparison to the vid below, I've just been strumming it. But you can see Pete both strums and picks. For me, in order to sing and pick, I'd need to come up with something first, and then practice it. I'm sure he's able to do it in just a way that he hits an open note right before the chord changes, in order to makes the changes easier. When I pick random notes while singing, I'm not always able to anticipate the distance(vertical movement) that the root of the next chord will be. And therefore the notes don't always fall conveniently into place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YYFCv4T3LU

To jump right in, I've started the tab from 0:10. Assuming I've the part at 0:10-0:13(as I've tabbed) right, it must be hard to pick with a plectrum, as these strings are far apart. And I've noticed that if you play the song with just strumming, then the move from Esus4 to Em sounds a bit random - so I'm trying to improve that part.

@0:10
       Esus               Em                         D
-----------------|--------0---------|-------2-----3--2--0-----0-|---------------------
-0---0---0---0---|------0---0-------|-----3-----3-3--3--3---3---|------------------
---------------2-|---0--------0---0-|---2-----2---2--2--2-2-----|------------
-----------------|-2------------2---|-0-----------0--0--0-------|--------
---2---2---2-----|------------------|---------------------------|-------------------
-----------------|------------------|---------------------------|-----------------

The rhythm of what he does at 0:52 seems to confuse me. He seems to hit the open A string on the '1' beat when moving to the E chord, and then to the open E string. That parts hard for me to get, you sort of have to skip the last up strum on the chord before it(D) in order to hit the open A. You'd be more used to a guitarist doing a moving like that just before the 1 beat. He hand is very rhythmic throughout it all even though he stops to hit the open notes. I think maybe the A is got with an up-strum, and the next down-strum might pluck the lower notes of the chord. You can also hear a (A--2p0--) played. I would like to know how he does it, in terms of a time signature showing where he does the up/down strums.

How does Townshend get this Bb5 chord towards the end of the song? At 3:12, he starts playing (Bb5-G5-D). I think he's just playing it as - x244xx, but it's that change from the Bb and the G that I find really hard to do properly. He must be really fast, or else he just hits the open strings; D, G and B for the first beat.

Listen to that very quick strum at 1:26! I often hear him do that in various other songs. Anyone know what's going on there?

Thank you

 

[JonR]

Your tab seems fine on the Esus and Em - and IMO the precise order of the arpeggio notes doesn't really matter - but you've left out the G chord! There's a whole bar of G between the Em and D.
In general, it's not hard with a pick, especially if you don't care too much which strings you pick - and you shouldn't here, as long as you keep time, and keep the alternation between bass and treble roughly the same.
Eg, I'm not sure he's alternating with the low B on the Esus, sounds more like the 4th string to me, with the low B ringing from a previous hit - but as I say, it doesn't really matter; it's the overall effect, the contrast between strumming and picking that governs the dynamics, produces the variety of colour.

At 0:52, after the D chord, he plays that bend on a G bass on beat one of the E5 chord, followed by A-G-E which sounds like it's all on the 6th string. I'm guessing he has his index on fret 2 of the 5th and 4th strings, lifting up a little to mute the 3rd. He can then use pinky to reach 5th fret on the E string:

-----------------------|-------------
-----------------------|----------
-----------------------|------------
----------2----------2-|-2-----------
----------2----------2-|-2------------
-3bp0-----0------5p3-0-|-0-------------------
 1     2     3     4     1

(bp means bend and pull-off).
Hard to tell where the Ds and Us would be. It could all be played with downstrokes, but I think it's a simple alternating DUDU all the way - ie, upstrokes between the beats - even on that 6th string 5th fret. (I can play it like that anyway, not too hard.) Unlike the following passage, where he's doubling up his downstrokes...

3:12 - he's just really fast! (with the right hand anyway) (The chord is B5 of course, not Bb5 ). Here's what I get from 3:10(ish):

3:10                              3:12                                   3:14
    Bm |Bm          A   A      Em  B5 |B5                         A5 |    G       Ds4 D      (D) B5 |B5
    /  |/           /   /       /  / /|/       /   / / /   /      /  |    /       /   /       /  / /|/
4 . & .|1 . & . 2 . & . 3 . & . 4  & .|1 . & . 2 . & . 3 . & . 4  & .|1 . & . 2 . & . 3 . & . 4  & .|1...
    d   d           d   d       d  d u d       d   d u d   d      d       d       d   d       d  d u d...

(Ds4 = Dsus4)
He's playing really aggressively, including the 6th string on the B5 chord (2244xx), not caring too much what other strings he hits on the other chords. The "(D)" is basically just the open 5th and 4th strings while he's moving his hand to the B5. The two bars from 3:12 then repeat a few times.

That very rapid d-u-d in 16ths on the B5 is the same double-time strum he uses at 1:26. If you can play downstrokes on every 8th at this tempo (which he is doing a lot of the time, certainly on the above passage), then the odd 16th in between is no trouble. As you say, it's one of his signature flourishes, typically on the "4-and" of a bar, syncopating the chord on the following downbeat:

|1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . 4 . . .|1
                             / / /
                             d u d

 

[paradice]

He's a rhythm shredder!

I dunno if that's a thing, but it should be

 

[mdubya]

He's a rhythm shredder!

I dunno if that's a thing, but it should be

Agree. He is highly under rated.

 

[To Need a Woman]

Your tab seems fine on the Esus and Em - and IMO the precise order of the arpeggio notes doesn't really matter - but you've left out the G chord! There's a whole bar of G between the Em and D.
In general, it's not hard with a pick, especially if you don't care too much which strings you pick - and you shouldn't here, as long as you keep time, and keep the alternation between bass and treble roughly the same.
Eg, I'm not sure he's alternating with the low B on the Esus, sounds more like the 4th string to me, with the low B ringing from a previous hit - but as I say, it doesn't really matter; it's the overall effect, the contrast between strumming and picking that governs the dynamics, produces the variety of colour.

At 0:52, after the D chord, he plays that bend on a G bass on beat one of the E5 chord, followed by A-G-E which sounds like it's all on the 6th string. I'm guessing he has his index on fret 2 of the 5th and 4th strings, lifting up a little to mute the 3rd. He can then use pinky to reach 5th fret on the E string:

-----------------------|-------------
-----------------------|----------
-----------------------|------------
----------2----------2-|-2-----------
----------2----------2-|-2------------
-3bp0-----0------5p3-0-|-0-------------------
 1     2     3     4     1

(bp means bend and pull-off).
Hard to tell where the Ds and Us would be. It could all be played with downstrokes, but I think it's a simple alternating DUDU all the way - ie, upstrokes between the beats - even on that 6th string 5th fret. (I can play it like that anyway, not too hard.) Unlike the following passage, where he's doubling up his downstrokes...

3:12 - he's just really fast! (with the right hand anyway) (The chord is B5 of course, not Bb5 ). Here's what I get from 3:10(ish):

3:10                              3:12                                   3:14
    Bm |Bm          A   A      Em  B5 |B5                         A5 |    G       Ds4 D      (D) B5 |B5
    /  |/           /   /       /  / /|/       /   / / /   /      /  |    /       /   /       /  / /|/
4 . & .|1 . & . 2 . & . 3 . & . 4  & .|1 . & . 2 . & . 3 . & . 4  & .|1 . & . 2 . & . 3 . & . 4  & .|1...
    d   d           d   d       d  d u d       d   d u d   d      d       d       d   d       d  d u d...

(Ds4 = Dsus4)
He's playing really aggressively, including the 6th string on the B5 chord (2244xx), not caring too much what other strings he hits on the other chords. The "(D)" is basically just the open 5th and 4th strings while he's moving his hand to the B5. The two bars from 3:12 then repeat a few times.

That very rapid d-u-d in 16ths on the B5 is the same double-time strum he uses at 1:26. If you can play downstrokes on every 8th at this tempo (which he is doing a lot of the time, certainly on the above passage), then the odd 16th in between is no trouble. As you say, it's one of his signature flourishes, typically on the "4-and" of a bar, syncopating the chord on the following downbeat:

|1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . 4 . . .|1
                             / / /
                             d u d

Thanks a lot Jon,

I'm making good use of this already.

 

[To Need a Woman]

Thanks

Your tab seems fine on the Esus and Em - and IMO the precise order of the arpeggio notes doesn't really matter - but you've left out the G chord! There's a whole bar of G between the Em and D.
In general, it's not hard with a pick, especially if you don't care too much which strings you pick - and you shouldn't here, as long as you keep time, and keep the alternation between bass and treble roughly the same.

Had been meaning to come back to this.

I know the picking isn't particularly important, but the nuance between 0:06-0:08 seems essential in the way it leads into the next barre. It seems as if he does 3 down strums before the start of the next barre. The skill in this seems to be that the up-strums are kind of silenced. He seems to be strumming quite wildly, yet the high e string isn't heard at all. If you listen closely to these strums, you'll realise that the A note rings out on the first strum, and that the B note rings out on the two strums after that.

And when he starts the next barre, he does some sort of an up-strum? on maybe just the 4 middle strings? and allows them to resonates briefly. Whatever he does really packs a punch!