Karma Police

Karma Police is made up of three unique sections, each with its own chord progression and rhythm, making it a very fun and rewarding song to learn!

The intro/verse

To play the verse of Karma Police, we’re going to need quite a few chords. We’re going to need A minor, D7/F#, E minor, G, F, D, G/F#, C, Bmin(b6,b9) and B minor.

I know that you may think that’s quite a lot of chords, but most of them are open chords, so don’t let that put you off! Some chord names can also be a bit overwhelming, but don’t worry too much about that, all the chord shapes that you need are below:

The structure of the verse is pretty consistent as we stay on most chords for two beats, with the exception of the sixth bar where we play one chord per beat, and the seventh bar where we stay on A minor for a whole bar.

Let’s now look at the strumming pattern we can use. As always with this kind of song, there’s a core strumming pattern that we can learn, but feel free to experiment with it and change things a bit to your liking! In terms of dynamics, we also want to add an accent on beats 2 and 4.

The accent can be added by strumming these two downstrokes a little harder, but also by targeting different strings. Here, for example, targeting the three or four highest strings can really take this pattern to the next level.

Once you have the chord progression under your fingers, and you’re more familiar with the strumming pattern, you can then add some extra details. When going from E minor to G, we can walk up to the note G on the low E string by playing fret 2 on the “and” of beat 2, before landing on the note G on the third fret.

Another thing we can do is change the pattern we’ve seen to a different one on the scary sixth bar of the verse.

And on the seventh bar, where we play A minor for a whole bar, we can also change the pattern to something a little different!

The chorus

In the chorus, we’re going to need C/G, D/A, G, F#7, B minor, C and D. Let’s have a look at the chord shapes that we need, knowing that some of them we’ve played in the verse just before!

In terms of structure, we’re playing each chord for two beats, except for the C which lasts for a full bar.

This part of the song much softer and quieter than the verse, so in terms of strumming, we want to keep it simple and just strum on the beats, making sure we’re not strumming too hard! You’re more than welcome to experiment, but remember that “less is more”!

When we get to the C major, we can use the same pattern we played on the A minor in the verse. Then, in the last bar of the chorus, we can use the same pattern from the verse again.

The outro

In the outro, we’re going to need B minor, D, G and E9. The only new shape is E9, so let’s focus on this one.

The structure is pretty straightforward, as we play each chord for two beats, and play E9 for a whole bar.

Let’s now focus on the rhythm of this outro. We have two strumming patterns to follow. The first one is played over the first three bars, while the second one is played just on E9.

The idea on the second pattern is also to strum harder and harder to make it sound more dynamic! And of course, you’re getting used to it by now, we want to keep adding an accent on beats 2 and 4!

Extra details:

If you’re more advanced, you can play a push on D major, on the “and” of the second beat. You can also add the little melody that I’m demonstrating on G, by playing the third fret on the E string (the note G) followed by the open A string before finishing on fret 2 on the A string.

And to let the progression breathe a little more, you can also play a Dsus2!