Watch the Shephard Breakdown 1 online guitar lesson by Matthieu Brandt from Slap, Frail, & Thump

Shephard Shuffle Breakdown 1
Shephard Shuffle is loosely based on a groove I picked up from Janis Ian, still one of the greatest songwriters of our time and a heck of a guitar player.
The song is - as the name implies - a shuffle, meaning that the timing is a triplet feel (one two three, one two three, one two three,...) where the 'two' is left out. This means that there generally are two 8th's in one beat, but they are not equally spaced. The second note/chord is closer to the next beat, then in a regular straight 8th feel.
Shephard Shuffle is in Am and uses a descending bass line that you'll hear in many singer-songwriter type songs. We'll start using precise slaps, add melody notes to them and work on damping techniques. The song is in regular tuning and we're using a capo on the 2nd fret. We'll work through the basic groove in this section.
The Jam button will play you Example 83.
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