Chords for The Man's Too Strong - Guitar Lesson Preview

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[G] This is of course the great Mark Knopfler [N] from Dire Straits' fifth album, Brothers in
Arms, 1985, The Man's Too Strong.
Now this is a song that has been heavily requested at TG for a long time and I'm finally getting
around to it, one I've been meaning to do for quite a while.
It's _ deceptively simple and deceptively complex at the same time.
Now Knopfler of course plays without a pick and uses his thumb for picking out these bass notes.
This is a fairly similar to what Neil Young does a lot more with a pick with Neil, but
and any kind of bluegrass playing that is, we could play the same thing [Dm] with the pick.
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[D] _ _ _ _ So [N] in the lesson I'll talk about doing it both ways, but you could really do whichever
is more comfortable for you.
Sometimes I recommend doing it with the way that is the least comfortable for you to branch
out a little bit.
Now the rest of the song, so it has a couple of different parts.
_ _ It's a complex arrangement as well, typical of some of that middle period of Dire Straits
songs from the last, really the middle three albums, Making Movies, Love Over Gold, and
Brothers in Arms.
Other great tunes on here, One World, Your Latest Trick, _ Money for Nothing of course.
So I really [Gm] encourage you to check out Brothers in Arms if you don't have it, but you should
have it, which is probably why you're [D] watching this _ [N] video.
_ We have got a couple of different sections.
We have got this little bluegrass intro with the melody picked out, kind of claw hammer
style or frailing, similar to some things that are done on the banjo.
Then we just have a fairly simple chord progression through the verse with chord, normal chords,
mostly kind of from the key of D, but it fluctuates between D and D minor and uses a lot of different
chords, again typical of Knopfler.
Then of course we have the _ chorus, which is fairly short, really just a couple of lines,
and the big old [D] crashing.
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[Gm] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Em] _
[D] _ _ _ Then it kind of comes back with a little gentle [G] strumming.
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So [Em] the song has a [B] little folky feel, it has a little bluegrass feel in the beginning,
[Dbm] and then a little heavier folk feel in the verse, and then kind of a symphonic crashing
in the instrumental part that follows the chorus.
So a lot of different stuff, but we're just going to talk about playing [N] an acoustic, _ solo
acoustic, not solo, not playing an instrumental, but just strumming through the chords and
taking a look at the intro.
What I have is a tab to really just the first eight measures of the intro, and _ _ _ _ we're going
to get kind of specific about that, but there's a lot of variety as to what you can do here.
You don't have to do it any one way.
You can pretty [D] much play the chords, D. _ _
_ [G] One thing that's really important in this song is a lot of times we don't hear [D] the,
really distinctly we don't hear the F sharp on the D chord.
We hear more of a D5, _ _ where the first string is being killed and left open, but being touched
by the third finger, so you're really only getting a power chord sound. _
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_ So we're trying to not [Dm] _ always be really clear as to whether the [Gm] D chord is D or D minor.
There are a couple [Dm] times when we [G] clearly want to hear D, one other time specifically when
we clearly want to hear D minor.
And we'll also talk about the outro, which is, [N] it's really just an unusual _ series of
chords, one of which we haven't even heard until it happens in the outro.
And but we're not going to talk, anyway, so we'll talk about the outro.
We're going to get to everything that you need to do to do this [D] lesson.
[G] Okay, next segment we'll talk about the chords and the strumming a little bit, and then we'll
piece it all together with the chord, the arrangement, and you know the drill.
Coming up, the man's too strong. _ _
That was the introductory segment to [Abm] a five or six part lesson that I put together on
the man's too strong.
And in it we talk about playing it with a pick, or playing it with your fingers, and
talk about all the parts, including the outro that has a very unusual [Bm] sequence [G] of chords.
We hear from our G [F] minors, we hear some F's, and [Fm] some F minors, [Am] and A [Em] minors, and [N] things like that.
So I try to cover all the bases in this song, rather than just show you, you know, what
he's doing in the intro, because, but that is one of the coolest parts.
So if you'd like to see the lesson, it's up, it's part of the Target program at Totally
Guitars, which is our monthly subscription program.
Also available as a single lesson, if you'd like to just pick up one and give it a try,
and see if you like the style of lessons that we have at Totally Guitars.
There are a lot of free lessons there as well to get you started, so there's a whole free
lesson section if you just want to check out some samples and see if what we have is for you.
So I just encourage you to come visit us at Totally Guitars, especially though, if you're
interested in working on the man's too strong.
There are some other Diary of Straits tunes there.
We don't go too far into his lead playing, because it's sort of an acoustic guitar site.
But we take a look at the rhythm guitar parts, so even [G] things like Money for Nothing, _ _ [F] _ [C] _ _ [Bb] [N] and
Sultans of Swing, and Romeo and Juliet, nice finger picking tune, and open G tuning.
So all those Diary of Straits tunes are there.
Come visit us at Totally Guitars when you can. _ _ _ _
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