Pop Punk II

Hello rockers! Welcome to the second lesson based on the Pop Punk Style. This time I’m covering the cleaner side of this style based on bands like Blink 182, Yelowcard and Green Day. This lesson is a cool lesson for beginners because it’s easy and it includes clean arpeggios and power chords. It’s also a good one for guitar players that aspire to create their own pop punk tunes. Be sure to check my previous Pop Punk lesson and also my other punk rock lessons at my instructor profile.

Music Style:
The sub style Pop Punk is just a combination of speed, dirty sound and attitude of the classic punk rock and the melodic and commercial side of the Pop music. The term has been used for many years but it was redefined in the mid 90’s when bands like Green Day and Offspring followed by Blink 182 appeared. After that a lot of Pop Bans appeared and continued appearing until today.The bands use distorted guitars that are frequently generated by Marshall JCM (800 & 2000) or Mesa Boogie amps, semi dirty bass sound (Ampeg and Gallien Krueger are the most used amps) and clean and melodic vocals. Perfectly tuned backing vocals and memorial choruses are other of the most distinctive characteristics.
In this second lesson I tried to recreate the mid tempo songs in which these bands usually combine chorused clean arpeggios in the verses and bridges with some distorted guitars in the choruses. Check out songs like “Stay Together For The Kids” by Blink 182 and “Wake Me Up When September Ends” by Green Day.

Tonality & Chord Progression:
The song is in D Major tonality. As I said in the previous Pop Punk lesson, the major tonalities are often used among these bands, even in the ballads. There are basically 2 progressions in this tune and both are the two most used in Pop Punk. The first one is I – V – IV and the other is VI – V – IV which could be considered as a modulation to the relative minor tonality. In this case the second progression would be Im – VII – VI.
The main guitar plays arpeggio ideas using the triads of the chords at every moment. I gave you an exercise in the first Pop Punk lesson and I’ll give you a new one for this lesson. The exercise will be to use the backing track to create your own ideas using arpeggios. Train your creativity and your composition abilities. This chord progressions has been used lots of times so if you come up with a cool melodic idea over it, this could became your first big hit. If you achieve it, please invite me to your show at Wembley.

Techniques:
The techniques used here are alternate picking and only down strokes in the chorus.
Pay attention to your timing, you must be precise.

Sound:
I used my Pod X3 Live to record this lesson.
For the distorted sounds I used a Marshall JCM800 emulator with a Marshall 4x12 cabinet. If you want the Line 6 Tone, you can ask for it in my personal board. My guitar is a Gibson Les Paul Studio. The drums are Ez Drummer and the bass sound is from the Hyper Canvas.

Tuning:
I used standard 440.

OK, romantic punk rockers! Let's start with the lesson.