How to play Wildflower by Billie Eilish
The fourth single from her Hit Me Hard and Soft album, Wildflower by Billie Eilish and Finneas is a cool jazz-pop number that makes a great chart for steel-string acoustic and electric guitars. The guitar is an integral element of the structure throughout Wildflower ; an excellent example of the importance of good rhythm guitar work.
Chords: Dmaj7 in 5th fret and open position, C#m7 4th fret, F#m 2nd fret, E open position, A 5th fret.
Pick or Fingers? Play the pick with straight, flat strums to get the soft, jazzy tone you hear Finneas creating. You can see his rhythm work clearly on the Amazon Songline live performance version available on YouTube. .
Acoustic or Electric? Finneas plays a good quality acoustic steel-string guitar on both the studio and the live version of Wildflower. If you don’t have an acoustic that’s comfortable for sustained bar-chords playing, a nice clean tone on electric guitar will also sound great. Don’t risk your hand health by playing full bar-chords on an acoustic guitar for a whole song if you are not ready for it, or don’t have a professional standard instrument.
What are the crossed strums for? A rhythm-slash with a cross-head is a ‘percussive strum’ - a muted effect made by relaxing the chord fingers just enough to make sure you only hear the blunt percussive sound of the pick striking the muted strings; a common rhythm effect in strum patterns based on funk rhythms.
How does the timing work? The slow funk style of Wildflower needs precise timing and pick articulation to make a steady rhythm. Most important is what happens on the 2nd & 3rd beats ; the down-strum on the 2nd beat is 3/4 of the beat and the down-strum is on the last semiquaver (last quarter) of that beat and ties over to the 3rd beat. The 4th beat is even semiquavers; two chord strums and then two percussive strums. Practice counting this aloud: “1 2 e and a 3 e and 4 e and a“ and so on . . .
Relevant pages in Modern Guitar Chord Styles 3 : to learn more about the bar-chords and rhythm techniques used in Wildflower go to pages 4 - 5, 8 and 28 - 31
Need a bit of help?
Modern Guitar Chord Styles 3 is an advanced/tertiary-level text that deals with the exciting but musically challenging area of Jazz and Funk styles. It features detailed information about the important Jazz and Funk chord forms, rhythm styles, harmony theory and styles of chord use. Presented in notation with chord boxes and some TAB to assist realization. The perfect assist for guitarists wanting to test their rhythm guitar ability & get grooving!
