Alright, decided today was the day I’d finally sit down and really try to learn “Two of Us” properly. Found a tab for it, seemed straightforward enough. You know how it is, you look at the paper and think, “Yeah, I can manage that.” Famous last words, maybe.
So I grabbed my guitar, got comfortable, and had a go at that opening riff. The tab laid it out pretty clearly, note by note. But translating those numbers on the screen to actual sounds? Well, that took some doing. My fingers felt clumsy, kept landing on the wrong frets or muting strings that should have been ringing out. Made a bit of a racket, honestly.
The chords themselves aren’t too bad in isolation, mostly basic stuff. But switching between them smoothly, especially keeping that rhythm going like in the recording? That’s where I started tripping up. That quick jump in the verse, I think it’s G to C or something similar in the tab I was using, my fingers just wouldn’t cooperate at first. Had to slow it right down, like ridiculously slow. Just playing those two chords back and forth, G… C… G… C… felt a bit daft doing it, but it’s the only way sometimes.
Breaking it Down
Realized I wasn’t really hearing the song properly in my head while playing. I was just reading the tab. So, I stopped playing for a few minutes. Put the actual Beatles track on and just listened. Tried to really absorb the feel of it, that driving acoustic rhythm they’ve got going on. It’s simple but it really pushes the song forward.
Then I picked the guitar back up. Tried to focus less on hitting every single note perfectly according to the tab, and more on getting that rhythmic strumming pattern down first. Even just muting the strings and practicing the strum helped lock it in a bit better.
- Worked on just the intro riff for a solid 15 minutes. Got it cleaner, less buzzing. Still not perfect, but better.
- Then practiced the verse chord changes again, focusing on the rhythm this time. Started to feel a little more natural.
- Tried linking the intro to the verse. Messed it up plenty of times, but eventually got a few clean run-throughs.
So, after about an hour or so with that tab, where am I at? Well, I can play something that sounds vaguely like “Two of Us”. It’s still rough around the edges, definitely needs more polish. My timing drifts a bit, and I still flub a chord change here and there if I’m not concentrating hard. But it’s progress, you know? From a bunch of confusing notes on a page to something resembling the actual tune. Pretty satisfying feeling, even if it’s not performance-ready. Just gotta keep chipping away at it with that tab tomorrow.
