Guitar Notes:
As per the request of a friendly viewer of this video who said: "great guitar work! i really like how you did the intro, any tips??" (fmtrunk) I'd like to include the following tutorial.
Fmtrunk, the key for me as far as the introduction goes was to focus on the left-hand fingering (or right-hand fingering if you're a left-handed guitar player). There's a lot going on above and beyond the overall strumming pattern - hammer-ons, walking baselines in particular - and it's important to have really solid before you think about anything else. It can take a while, but once you get it worked out it sounds really nice. So it's worth the effort
Once you know *what* to play it's a matter of practice, practice, practice until it feels fluid and natural. In my case this required I play it at half-speed or quarter speed until I had no problems and then increase the tempo as I got better.
Finally, once you've got the fingering worked out you can begin to highlight the transitions you're playing via the strumming pattern. That's a matter of emphasising the notes that change from one strum to the next. So you're tailoring the strumming pattern to accommodate the changes, and not the other way around.
For example, during the more complex fingering sections I'll only play the two or three strings near the changes. Otherwise you risk drowning out the subtleties with too much punch. Whereas during the less intricate sections you can add depth to the sound by playing more strings and more complex strumming rhythms.
By the time you've reached this stage you can combine everything together and experiment until you've worked out a sound that you're happy with. This will tend to change over time too by the way, but that's the way music is for musicians. It grows as we grow. So something that sounded good a few years back will have long since become obsolete. It's part of the journey.
