Sufjan Stevens - Futile Devices (TUTORIAL)
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- Опубликовано: 10 фев 2025
- Well it’s been a long long time coming but many people have requested a tutorial for this - so hopefully this does the trick! Thanks for being so patient!
See full song, recorded in 2011 - here: • Sufjan Stevens - Futil...
Please let me know if you have any more questions!
1) Finger Picking Pattern
There is an 8 beat pattern that plays throughout the entire song. It follows the following sequence (where strings 1 is the top string and string 4 is closest to you) with the finger described being on the strumming hand:
String 1 - middle finger
String 2 - index finger
String 4 - thumb
String 3 - index finger
String 4 - thumb
String 2 - index finger
String 1 - middle finger
String 2 - index finger
This repeats throughout the entire song
2) Chords
There are 4 chords use. Three main chords and a fourth chord introduced towards the end of the song. Below outlines where each finger should be for the non-strumming hand. You’ll play the chords with the finger picking pattern described above
Chord 1:
pinky on 8th fret of string 1
ring finger on 6th fret of string 2
index finger on 2nd fret of string 3
Chord 2:
pinky same
ring finger same
remove index finger
Chord 3:
pinky slides to fret 7
ring finger same
The sequence, using the repeated finger picking pattern, goes:
Chord 1, chord 1, chord 2, chord 3
3) The fourth chord
When Sufjan sings “and I would say I love you but saying it out loud... is hard” there is a fourth chord introduced. Same picking pattern.
Chord 4
same as chord 1 except index finger moves to fret 3.
The new sequence at this point becomes:
Chord 4, chord 1, chord 2, chord 3.
Play this through to end
4) final note
When Sufjan sings “words are futile devices” at the end of the song, I end with a chord. This is simply chord 3 but strummed rather than picked. For that last line of the song the sequence is:
Chord 4, chord 1, STRUM chord 3
(So you skip chord 2 in the sequence)
Please let me know if there are other songs you'd like a tutorial for - happy to learn and teach!
I would really like to learn how to play "My Rajneesh-Sufjan Stevens" but I still don't find any tutorial. I would be very happy if you could do that tutorial. Thank you 😄😊
The rain song by led zeppelin
@@luisaparada2665 Yes, please do a tutorial for this one !
Mystery of love!
mystery of love by sufjan!! 🤍🤍
OMG !!! I bought my ukulele and it will be the first song !!! 🥺🥺🥺
In hindsight I probably shouldn't have picked this as my first song to learn on ukulele, maybe should've learned something easier first... but it's been a couple weeks and I've almost got it! I've got the chords and strumming pattern down, now all I gotta do is keep practicing until I can play it reliably!
Definitely should have stuck with chords - but if you're almost nailing this one, you're gonna shred on the uke!
I’ve been waiting for this one
finally!!!😭😭😭😭
It's really hard to play with a tenor uku, but this tuto is really helpful, thank you very much ! hope you can do more tutorials for Sufjan song :)
Thank you! Yes the position is quite a stretch and I would normally recommend playing on a smaller Uke but wanted to make sure the positions could be clearly seen! There may also be other patterns which are less of a stretch but this one made the most sense to me for the flow of the song and transitions :)
David!!!!! Thank you so much.
I am glad that I stumbled upon your channel!! Now I am going to buy a uke and learn it from you.💜💜💜✨
Thank you so much for this, it has really helped me:)
Finally, thank you so much for doing this
Mystery of love next!
Thank you so much! This was really helpful!
This was perfect. Thanks alot for this
Thank you sir !!
I loved it, thank youuu
thank youuuu thank youuu thank youuuu
omg yesss finally thank you !!
Can u pls upload a tut of mystery of love
Ok...u are amazing
omg thanks!!!
thank u so much
I’ll be buying a soprano uke.
no matter how much i try i can’t get a grip of the first chord, do you have any suggestions david?
My main suggestion would be to tune the top two strings a little higher so you don't have to stretch as far. But you can also try finding whatever position works (it might mean you hold your wrist slightly different)
qotd: can my smol hand hold these chords for the duration of the song? We shall see, we shall see.
It is a bit of a stretch - much easier on a standard sopranu uke but I was playing on a larger one for the tutorial :) if you can make it happen let me know!
@@davevallance how can we transpose these chords? it's a bit out of my range
@@helentaylor4120 Hi Helen - do you mean it's out of your range vocally or in terms of holding chords?
@@davevallance both!
Tbr after I got the initial finger placement down I gave up lmao my fingers could NOT be that far apart and be comfortable 😂
Come back to it - it took me a long time for it to be comfortable. You'll find a position that works :) You can also play with tuning the strings differently to bring your fingers closer together.
Don't give up, for my first few attempts it seemed literally impossible to get my fingers to stretch properly but I got used to it a much quicker than expected
After 9 years, i still can't play it because my fingers are too SHORT :(
Just keep working on it - I promise you'll get there! The other option is to tune your top two strings higher so you bring them further up the fret to play :)
@@davevallance thank you!
as a beginner this is insanely difficult lol
Yes definitely one to pick up later or come back to. It is a bit of a stretch with the fingers. However once you are more familiar with your uke you can also try tuning the strings differently to make the stretch less intense!