Video transcript
Hey everyone, my name is Ellen and today I'm going to be showing you guys how to play 22 by Taylor Swift on the guitar. So stay tuned if this is something that you want to learn. It feels like a perfect night to dress up like hipers. So, I asked you guys to vote about which Taylor Swift song you wanted to learn from her new album Red. And the winner with almost 40% of the vote was 22. So, here's the tutorial for it. And make sure you go ahead and check out my survey for the next tutorial. So, you can vote for what you want to learn next. With that being said, let's go ahead and start into it. We're happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time. So, this tutorial is going to be really great for all you beginners out there because there's no cable required. and some standard tuning. And also, there's only three chords in the whole song. So, I'll go ahead and teach those to you guys. It's time. So, the first chord you guys are going to need to know is G, which looks like this. And sounds like this. Okay. And after that, you need to know C add 9, which looks just like G, but all you're going to do is take your first and middle finger and move them each down one string. So, it looks like this. And it sounds like this. And then the very last chord you need to know is D suspended four which looks like this and sounds like this. So these chords may seem a little familiar to some of you guys who know Taylor Swift songs because she tends to use them a lot. Um, but something that you may have noticed with the chords is that your ring finger and your pinky never move. So for all the chords, they're always in the same spot. So it makes it really easy to transition. So why don't you go ahead and practice those three chords until you have them memorized and can transition between them. And I'm going to go ahead and show you some strumming patterns. And this probably is going to be the hardest part of the tutorial. So I'm going to give you a few options as to whether you want like more easy and basic strumming or more complicated strumming. So, um, yeah, go ahead and practice that and then click continue and I'll show you the strumming that I've come up with for you. So, hopefully you guys have those chords down. I'm going to go ahead and start off strumming by teaching you a basic strumming pattern you can use for the verses and the pre choruses. All you have to know to be able to play this strumming pattern is how to count to eight because there's going to be eight beats in one little round. And I'm gonna show you guys how to break those eight beats up so that we can play all the chords and have it follow the rhythm that Taylor Swift has. So go ahead and put your G chord down because that's the first chord in the song. And go ahead and play all downstrokes. I want you to play G eight times. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. Okay, you just played one round, but we're going to split it up a little bit. So this time I only want you to play G for the first five beats. 1 2 3 4 5 Okay, with six, seven, and eight, we're going to play D suspended. So, go ahead and put your D suspended chord on and play the last three beats. 6 7 8. So, if you put that together, it sounds like this. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. or with chords G. Okay, now we can go on to C add 9. And again, C add 9 is going to be like G. You're going to play it five times. 1 2 3 4 5. And then go to D suspended and play 6 7 8 6 7 8. So al together it sounds like this. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. All right. And that's how you can play all of the verses and all of the pre choruses. So, right now it sounds a little bit ringing. So, how we're going to fix that is now all we have to do is add in a little bit of a palm mute by resting the side of your right hand or your playing hand against the strings while you strum. Okay? So, now it'll sound like this. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 I know it doesn't sound like the most beautiful thing in the world, but when you speed it up a little bit after you practice, it'll sound pretty close to the record without being really difficult to play. It feels like a perfect night to dress up like hipers, make fun of our exes. Uh oh. Uh oh. Okay. And again, like I said, you can play that for the precourse part, the part that goes, "Yeah, that part." Um, now I'm going to go ahead and teach you a little bit more of a difficult strumming pattern, but it does sound a little more accurate to the song. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to go ahead and give you the entire pattern first, and it's going to probably look like a lot of information, but I will break it down, so bear with me. Okay? So, the whole pattern goes like this. Down, down, down, up, down, up, down, down, up. down, down, down, up, down, up, down, down, up. Okay, so I know that's a lot of things to remember. So, let's go ahead and break this pattern up into half. So, go ahead and put your G chord down since that's the first chord. And we're just going to play half of this pattern. Okay? Okay. So, with G, we're going to play down up down, down, down, up, down, 2 3 4 down, down, up, down. 2 3 4. Okay, once you feel like you pretty much have that, now we can add in the rest of our pattern. And what we're going to do now is we're going to switch from G to D suspended to play that last part. Okay? But for right now, let's go ahead and just practice the Dsuspended part. So just the last P part of the pattern with D suspended, it's going to sound like this. Up down down up, down, down, down. 1 2 3 4 5 up down down. Okay. So whenever you have both of those halves um separately, you can start adding them together. So when you put the G and the D suspended chord together, it'll sound like this. down, down, down, up, down, up, down, down. Once you have that down, all you have to do is transfer that same pattern over to the C chord. So, go ahead and put your C add 9 chord down. And the C is going to be played just like the G. So, down down up down 2 3 4 And then to finish that out, you're going to play the D suspended just like we did earlier. The exact same pattern. 1 2 3 4 5 up down down. 1 2 3 4 5 up down down. 1 2 3 4 5 Okay. So now you can add C and D back together. So it'll sound like this. Okay. So, let's put all of our chords together and play through the entire pattern. It's going to sound like this. Heat. Heat. D C D G D C C D Okay, the very last thing you have to do is just like in the first part, all you have to do now is add a little bit of a mute by pressing the palm of your right hand or playing hand against the strings while you play. So, it'll be more muted and it'll sound like this. And then again, all you have to do is practice that over and over until your hands can play it without you thinking. And then you just speed it up a little bit at a time until you can play it at tempo. It feels like a perfect night for breakfast at midnight. I don't know the words. Okay. So, now that you have the strumming pattern for the verses and the pre choruses, I'm going to go ahead and teach you the basic pattern for the chorus. And for this one, all you have to do is know how to count to three. And the reason why I say that is because we're going to look at this pattern in groups of three. So if you go ahead and put your G chord on, how we're going to start this off is we're going just play it once. 1. Okay? And now we're going to play in a group of three. The G twice. G. And then on three, we're going to play the C add 9. C. So that group of three is G C. Okay. The next group will be the same thing. You're going to play C add 9 twice. C C. And then on three you're going to play D. So that next group is C C D. So when you play it all in rhythm, it sounds like this. G C D G C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C D B D B D B D B D B D B D B D B D B D B D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D So al together the chorus will sound like this. I don't know about you, but I'm feeling 22. Everything will be all right. You keep me next to you. If you want to try a little bit more of an advanced pattern for the chorus, I'm going to go ahead and teach you one that may be familiar to those of you who have seen my tutorials before, because like I always say, this is the default pattern that I go to when I play Taylor Swift songs. But it goes like this. Down, down, up, down, down, down, up. down up down down Okay, so this whole pattern will be played for each chord. Heat. Heat. The thing I decided to change up a little bit about it this time to make it a little different is um the second down up right here somewhere in the middle. We're just gonna completely take that out and instead we're just gonna have the side of our hand kind of mute the strings and keep them quiet for a few beats. So it'll sound more like this. C. And you can play that for the chorus and it'll sound like this. I'm feeling everything will be all right if you keep me next to you. know that I bet you everything will be all right. Just keep Okay. So, I've given you guys a couple of different options about different strummings that you can play during the verses and the chorus. But, like I always say, if you come up with something that you're more comfortable playing because this is either too easy or too hard for you, then um that's perfectly fine. I think that's the best way to play any song. But also, I just want to let you know that I understand that these patterns can be a little bit difficult. But, I promise, promise, if you practice it and just slowly speed it up, you should be able to play it pretty soon. Um, and let me know if you have any questions about it by leaving a comment below and I'll try to answer all of you guys' questions if it wasn't clear enough in this tutorial. But, um, anyways, when you have all of your strumming down pat, let's go ahead and put everything together and we'll play through the whole song together. Everything will be all right. So, hopefully you guys feel pretty comfortable with all the chords and transitions and whatever different kinds of strumming patterns you wanted to use. Um, let's go ahead and put all of those elements together and we'll play through the entire song. I'm going to go a little bit below tempo just so it's easier to keep up. And remember that if you can't keep up with this speed just to stop the video here and just do it at your own speed. And um, yeah, good luck. This is 22 by Taylor Swift. It feels like a perfect night to dress up like hipsters and make fun of our exes. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. It feels like a perfect night for breakfast at midnight. Full of strangers. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Yeah. We're happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time. It's miserable and magical. Oh yeah. Tonight's the night when we forget about the dead lights. It's time. Uh-oh. I know about you. I'm feeling too. Everything will be all right. You came next to you. know about me. I bet you want to. Everything will be all right. We just keep 22. It seems like one of those nights. This place too crowded. Too many cool kids. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. It seems like one of those nights we ditch the whole scene and end up dreaming. Instead of sleeping, we're happy, free, confused, and lonely in our best way. It's miserable and magical. Oh yeah. Tonight's the night when we forget about the heartbreaks. Uh oh. I know that you feel too. Everything will be all right if you give me to you. know about me. I bet you want to. Everything will be all right. We just keep doing Heat. Heat. Oh yeah, I know that you feel too. Everything will be all right. You can be next to you. You know, I bet you everything will be all right. Heat. Heat. N. you. I got to have you. I got to have you. So, that was my tutorial. I hope you guys found this helpful. Please make sure to like and favorite and leave a comment below if you liked this video and also maybe subscribe up here for more tutorials coming your way soon. Also, don't forget to vote for the next tutorial you want to see by clicking on the link in the description and doing a vote there. And also check out all my other tutorials by clicking on an annotation that I will put somewhere in here. So, um, thanks again for watching and I hope this helped and I'll see you guys next time. Bye.