Mumford & Sons Style

Hi GMC!

Welcome to my new acoustic guitar lesson! This time I decided to cover a band that I discovered some weeks ago thanks to Spotify’s top lists. Mumford and sons is a folk rock band from England formed in 2007 that has become very popular in the last years because of their great songs but also because of their energetic live shows in which they usually rotate the instruments that each musician plays. I recommend you to check some YouTube live videos if you don't know them.

Music Style:
This band uses instruments from folk rock and bluegrass styles like mandolin, acoustic guitar, banjo, upright bass and piano but give the overall thing an alternative rock vibe. The result is very original and that made them stand out over many other indie rock bands. In this lesson I tried to re-create their biggest hit compositions concepts and arrangements. For this reason, I used my acoustic guitar and arranged the tune with piano and banjo.

Tonality, Chord Progression & Scales:
I found that most of their songs are in major tonalities and that’s why I decided to composed this idea in D major. They frequently use “open tunings” so they get the major chord just by playing all the open strings together. There is not a big secret behind this composition and the other ones by them, just pop, rock and folk style progressions, major, minor, dominant and power chords.

Techniques:
The cool thing of this lesson is that I'm going to share a special rhythm very often used in folk music, and off course in Mumford’s music. That’s the tricky part of this lesson talking about technique, so pay attention to the video part number 1 where I share the rhythm.

Sound:
I used my Yamaha acoustic guitar, mic-ed with a condenser mic.
Trillian for bass, SSD 3.5 for bass kick, hi hat and cymbals and Hallion for piano and banjo.

Tuning: Open D tuning

From lower to higher
6: D
5: A
4: D
3: F#
2: A
1: D

Tempo: 120 BPM

Ok guys – pick up your acoustic guitar and play with me!