Here, There and Everywhere - The Beatles Guitar Lesson

How to play 'God Only Knows' by The Beach Boys on Guitar

Here’s my arrangement of how to play The Beach Boys’ classic ‘God Only Knows’ on guitar. This is taken from their 1966 album ‘Pet Sounds’, widely considered one of the most influential albums in music history.

This is such a harmonically rich song. I just couldn’t resist working it out.

I’ve tried to get this as close as possible to the sound of the original recording, with the syncopated bass line in the thumb and the piano chords in the fretting hand fingers.

Guitar Pro and PDF tabs are available to members of my Patreon group. You can find out more about that by clicking here.

How to play 'Man Like You' as performed by Tom Misch

One of my followers over on Instagram recommended the music of Tom Misch. I duly had a listen to his 2018 release “Geography”, and then fell deep into a neo soul guitar hole!

Not one of the neo soul cuts on the album, I particularly liked his version of Patrick Watson’s ‘Man Like You’. I liked it so much, I felt compelled to bring a lesson on it to my YouTube channel.

Both the original and Misch’s version use tenths (essentially thirds raised an octave). A beautiful sound that really grabbed me.

You can find the song lesson and a live performance by Tom Misch below. My TABs are also available on my Patreon page.

How to play 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' by The Beatles

My adventures into The Beatles' back catalogue has gotten me and my family up to 'The Beatles' (more commonly known as 'The White Album').

I asked on social media which song I should bring to my YouTube channel.  This one proved popular and it's one of my favourites from the album so I really enjoyed putting this one together.

In this song lesson I will take you through all the chord progressions and strumming patterns.  I did transcribe the solo and might bring that to the channel at some point.

Going ‘In Deep’ with The Beatles’ ’Twist and Shout’

I never realised until very recently that The Beatles recorded a lot of cover versions in their early discography.  Did you know for example that ‘Twist and Shout’ was a cover?  And did you know that they recorded that and the entire ‘Please Please Me’  album in one single day?! 

I was always aware that The Beatles were a very important band but I’d never taken the time to really dig in and appreciate their music.  I’ve really relished discovering The Beatles properly for the first time this last year and sharing it with my children.  My new-found passion for their music is something I’m looking to bring to my YouTube channel in the coming months.  

My newest video lesson is in a format which most closely reflects how I like to teach my live students.  I teach predominantly through learning songs.  But more than just simply walking a student through chord progressions and a strumming pattern I love to delve a little deeper and consider thinks like how the chords relate to one another, how they can be moved to different keys, how chords are constructed or which scale was being used for that specific solo.

‘Twist and Shout’ was my first choice as I’ve found myself teaching it to a lot of students recently.  It’s a great song for a better understanding of I-IV-V progressions, specifically when played with barre chords.  There’s a great little guitar solo too that uses a C-shape major scale harmonised in diatonic 3rds.

You can download the on-screen TAB that accompanies the video by clicking here.

'All I Want For Christmas Is You' by Mariah Carey

Here is a song lesson from my archive on how to play 'All I Want Is You' by Mariah Carey, one of my FAVOURITE Christmas songs.

It's not easy.  There are some quick changes and interesting jazzy grips here so a nice little challenge to get stuck into.  You've still got plenty of time before Christmas Day.

You can get a copy of the songsheet by clicking here.

How to Play 'Run' by Daughter

Here's a recent song lesson on 'Run' by Daughter.  This was the B-side of the band's single 'Smother', although the version I cover is an acoustic demo version that was suggested to me by a viewer.

This song uses the bass note strumming pattern that I introduced in my previous post. You can find the tabs below.  Click on the image for a .pdf to download.

How to Play 'Hey Ya!' by Outkast

'Hey Ya!' is an absolute classic of a tune, and it's one that I often get out for students to work on a tied strumming pattern at a fast tempo.

It was presenting this to a student last week that prompted me to come up with the idea of a new series of videos for my YouTube channel, entitled (very unoriginally I know) 'Strumming Songs'.  This will be a series of songs that have one or two chord progressions with beginner chords but a great vibe to them.  There'll probably be lots of tied strumming patterns going on.

Below is a copy of the chord progression to download.  This is the progression throughout the song (although I still can't decide whether the E chord becomes an Em sometimes).

Good luck with it.

How to Play 'Sense of Home' by Harrison Storm

Here is my new song lesson on how to play 'Sense of Home' by Harrison Storm.  This was a request from one of my viewers, Danny.  This song has been added to my growing collection of fingerstyle songs that can be found on my YouTube channel.

You will find the tabs below.  Click on the image for a .pdf to download.

How to Play 'Low Life' by Jamie N Commons

Here is my new song lesson on 'Low Life' by Jamie N Commons.  This was a request from one of my subscribers, Shaun Gimbitt.

There is a lot of chord embellishment in the original version with hammer ons and sus chords.  My lesson here presents the chord progressions and then a 16th note strumming pattern that closely resembles the feel of the song.

You will find the chord progressions below.  Click on the image for a .pdf to download.

How to Play 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams' by Green Day

Here's a lesson from my archives on how you can play 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams' by Green Day from their hugely successful 2004 album 'American Idiot'.

The main verse progression is particularly interesting as, with the chord fingerings I suggest, it allows us to work on the idea of anchor fingers.  This is when we are changing chords and one or more fingers stay in exactly the same position as we change chord.  With some focused practice, this can really help us with the speed of our chord changing.

You can find a song sheet with the chords and lyrics here.

How to Play 'Skinny Love' by Bon Iver

Skinny Love Song Tutorial

Here's a tutorial from my archives on how to play 'Skinny Love' by Bon Iver. Tabs can be found below.  Click on the image to download a .pdf.

I based my transcription on the original recording and this live performance:

Skinny Love is from Bon Iver’s 2007 debut album ‘For Emma Forever Ago’.  In the original recording (and when played live) the song is played on a resonator guitar.  I am using my trusty Yamaha folk guitar with steel strings.  I would definitely recommend steel strings for this.  Avoid doing it on a classical or electric guitar.

Skinny Love Tuning

The guitar is tuned to an open C tuning (i.e. the open strings give the sound of a C major chord).  The tuning of the guitar though is slightly lower than the notes that I tell you to tune to.  That’s why it might sound pretty horrible if you tune to 440 Hz and try to play along to the song.  Have a listen to Skinny Love and reference the open C chord if you want to try and make the adjustment to play along to the original. 

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To get into the tuning for the song, you need to do as follows:

E (string 6) tunes DOWN two tones/whole steps to C
A (string 5) tunes DOWN a tone/whole step to G
D (string 4) tunes UP a tone/whole step to E (always be careful when tuning strings up!)
G (string 3) STAYS the same :o)
B (string 2) tunes UP a semitone/half step to C
E (string 1) tunes DOWN two tones/whole steps to C

Note that both strings 1 and 2 are tuned to the same note.

You can hear the Skinny Love tuning notes in this tuning video I made especially for the song lesson:

There is a pretty consistent tied strumming pattern throughout the song, but we are in a shuffle feel here.  Simply put, if we are strumming 8th notes down and up, the down strum is longer in length than the up strum.  You can split the beat into a count of 3 (or triplets).  You strum down on the 1 and back up on the 3 count.

Skinny Love Tab

My transcription with all the Skinny Love chords and strumming patterns is available below:

How to Play 'We Don't Believe What's On TV' by twenty one pilots

Here's my latest song lesson and it's another tune by twenty one pilots.  This is how to play 'We Don't Believe What's On TV' from the band's 2015 release 'Blurryface'.

You might know their huge song 'Stressed Out' but there's a lot more great music by the band to check out.  It's so difficult to place what genre the music is, but I like it!

This is a ukulele song so I'm using the capo very high up the neck, which can make some chord grips and changing tricky.  The real challenge here though comes with the strumming patterns.  We've got some fast, 16th note rhythms for the majority of the song, which is pretty demanding. 

I hope you enjoy it.  All the chord progressions can be found below.