Ain't No Sunshine by Bill Withers Tutorial/Lesson
Ain't No Sunshine
Am7, Em, G, Dm
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Video transcript
>> Hey everyone, my name is Ellen and today I'm going to be showing you guys how to play Ain't No Sunshine by Bill Withers on the guitar. And today I am featuring my Martin 000-15M guitar, [music] so if you like what you see, I will link more information about it down below. Here's a quick overview of everything I'll be covering in this tutorial today, and with that being said, let's go ahead and get started. All right guys, so to play this song you only need to know four different chord [music] shapes, and we're start with our A minor 7, which looks like this and sounds like this. >> [music] >> And by the way, if you don't know how to read these chord charts you're seeing on screen, I do cover how to do that my free beginner series right here on YouTube, so make sure to check that out right here. The next chord shape is our E minor. >> [music] >> We also have our G major. And then the last chord shape is our D minor. And those are the only four chords you need to know to play to this song. And really quick, just a note on that E minor chord, um sometimes I will fret it with my middle and my ring finger like this. And sometimes I'll fret it with my index and my middle finger like this. >> [music] >> It kind of depends on what way I'm playing the song, but I want you to figure it out for yourself going from your A minor 7 to your E minor, which way's easier for you. Just bringing your index finger up above >> [music] >> or taking your middle finger and moving it up a string and then bringing your ring finger with it. >> [music] >> All right. Both are valid ways to fret that E minor chord, but I just wanted to show you guys that I like to do both. So go ahead and pause the video and take as much time as you need to really look over these chord shapes, get them memorized, and also practice transitioning back and forth between them, cuz it'll make learning the rest of the song so much easier for you. And if this is skill you're currently struggling with, I do have [music] a practice with B chord transitions playlist here on YouTube. So, I'll link that in the corner for those of you who need it. But, once you have these chords under your belt, then we can go ahead and talk about the strumming that I would suggest [music] for this song. So, as I always say, if you are brand new to playing guitar or you're somebody who struggles with playing guitar and singing at the same time, the first thing I would suggest doing is to bring up the song and go ahead and go through the entire thing with just a single down strum on each chord change as you sing through the song. And you want to take this time to really get used to what word or what syllable you're on whenever those chords are changing. So, here's a quick example of what that would look like. Ain't no sunshine when she's gone. It's not warm when [music] she's away. >> [music] >> All right. So, that's just a really quick example, but you essentially want to do that for the entire song and just really make sure you know where those chords are going to be changing. This is also a great way to kind of understand the structure of the song. For example, you saw there we have the E minor and the G chords are kind of like half measures compared to the A minor 7. That's all stuff you'll figure out as you do this practice pattern, which is something you do right now if you check out my Patreon page. I do have this entire guide available to download and print out. So, I'll make sure to leave that link in the description box if you're interested. you've done that, you're comfortable with where those chords are going to be changing, then we can go ahead and add to this to create more of a full strumming pattern you can use for this song. All right, guys. So, for strumming today, we're going to keep it really simple in this eighth note pattern. As you can see, we have down, up, down, up. And it's going to sound like this. We have one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and down, down, up, down, up, down, up. All right. And basically, what we're going to do is play this pattern through one time per chord throughout the song. However, as I said earlier in the practice section, there are going to be a couple of places where we're splitting a measure. So, in that instance, the strumming pattern is going to change a little bit. So, let's go ahead and start here on the first verse on our A minor 7. You're going to play this pattern through fully one time through. So, we've got down [music and singing] down up down up. And then on the A minor to G, you can see here there's those little like kind of dash marks there. That's just my way of signaling to you guys that we are going to be splitting the measure. So, in that case we do need a secondary strumming pattern. So, I'm going to go ahead and put that on screen here. As you can see we've got down down up down up. And this little vertical line in the middle, that represents where we want to change our chords, okay? So, on our E minor chord, we're going to play the left half. We've got 1 2 and then switch [music] at the line to your G chord and finish out the measure. 3 4 and Okay? >> [music] >> So, so far we've got A minor 7 on the full measure. 1 and [music] 2 and 3 and 4 and to E minor 1 2 and to [music] G 3 4 and. All right? From there it goes back to that A minor 7 for a full pattern again. So, all together without stopping it sounds like this. We've got down down up down down up [singing and music] down down up down down up down up. A minor 7 >> [music] >> E minor G A minor 7 All right? And this is most of the song right here. [music] Down down [singing] up down down 1 2 and 4 and [music] 1 2 and 4 and All right? We are going a little bit below tempo. So, if you're able to speed it up, then we can add some singing and you can hear how it all kind of comes together. No sunshine when she's gone. >> [music] >> It's not warm when she's away. >> [music] >> Ain't no sunshine when [music and singing] she's gone. Right here, we go from our E minor to our D minor. These are both going to get two measures each of the full pattern. Ain't no sunshine when she's gone. And she's always gone too long anytime she goes away. >> [music] >> And then right back to how we were when she goes away. Split, split, >> [music and singing] >> full. All right. And that's an example of the verse, and basically this entire song is just made up of a bunch of verses, so you would play it that exact same way. So, the only thing you have to remember with strumming is to remember which measures get a full strumming pattern, which measures get a half strumming pattern, and which measures might be repeated once or twice, okay? And so, that's how you can play through the whole song. That little section in the middle where he sings I know over and over again, that's going to be kind of a cappella there, so all Bill Withers does when he plays it is he kind of just taps a beat on his guitar. Okay, like that. So, you'd be like, I know, I know, I [singing] know, I know, I know, I know. And then you just kind of keep that beat going. And then when you come in at the end of the song, it goes right back into this exact same chord order, the way that we've already learned how to play it. Now, really quick, if you wanted to make your strumming sound a little bit closer to how Bill Withers finger picks this song, one thing you can do is I'm going to go ahead and add a little B on the first beat of each chord change, okay? So, for our A minor 7 chord, our little B is on the first beat, the first down strum. What that B represents is bass, or I want you to play like the bass note only. So, what that is is on each chord, you're going to play the lowest string that's played. So, in A minor 7, that is our fifth A string. So, you want to play that all by itself on the first beat >> [music] >> and then finish out the strumming pattern. Two and four and. So, it goes like this. 1 [music] 2 and 4 and all right? Same thing with our split pattern on our E minor, you're going to play just that open E string as the first beat. 1 2 and [music] switch quickly to your G chord. You're going to pick that low E string again. 3 4 and [music] Okay? So, we've got A minor 7 >> [music] >> to our E minor to G back to A minor 7 All right? So, if you put that together with the singing, it sounds like this. Ain't no sunshine when she's gone. It's not warm when she's [music] away. Ain't no sunshine [music and singing] when she's gone and she's always gone too long. Right there on D minor, you're going to pick that a D string. >> [music] >> All right? Anytime [singing] she goes away. >> [music] >> Totally optional to do that little bass note line there, but it does kind of help to sound more like how Bill Withers' original song goes. So, if you wanted to kind of isolate that bass note on the first beat of each chord change, I think that sounds really great. So, again, go ahead and pause the video and take as much time as you need to really look over these strumming rhythms and kind of get them under muscle memory. If you're somebody who wants to sing on top of playing the guitar, this is something that kind of has to be built up over time. So, just keep practicing it until you kind of can play through the rhythm without thinking about the count of it and then at that point, it should be easier to sing on top of. Um but like I said earlier, Bill Withers actually plays this song with a finger picking method instead of strumming with a pick. So, I wanted to show you guys that because it's really super simple to do. So, let's go ahead and talk about that next. All right, guys. So, before we dive into the finger picking section of this tutorial, I did want to go over just a few rules. First of all, I am going to be numbering my strings here. So, my low E is six and it goes 5 4 3 2 1 all the way to my high E, which is one. So, in this section of the tutorial, I will be referring to these strings as their number, okay? And then talking about our hands, our left hand is nothing's changing. You're still going to be holding down those same exact chord shapes that we learned during the strumming portion. Um so, nothing's changing on left hand. However, on our right hand, what we're going to do is drop our pick and instead of strumming the strings, we're going to use our fingers to pluck each string individually, okay? So, now with all that being said, let's go ahead and go over what your right hand's going to look like. I want you to take your pointer, your middle, and your ring finger, and those are going to live here on the bottom three strings, the G, the B, [music] and the E. So, throughout this entire little picking section, these three fingers are not going to move from those low three strings, okay? The only finger that should be moving is your thumb, and that's because your thumb going to be covering the bass note of each chord. So, [music] for example, on our A minor 7, the lowest bass note is this fifth A string. So, your thumb's going to be on that fifth A string. For your E minor, your thumb's going to move to this sixth E string. For G, it's also on the sixth E string. >> [music] >> And then for D minor, your thumb's going to move down here to the fourth D string. All right. So, again, your thumb is the only finger that's moving throughout this picking pattern. These three fingers will always be on the bottom three strings. So, now with that being said, the picking pattern should feel a lot easier to understand cuz what we're going to do is for each chord shape, let's go ahead and start with our A minor 7, you're going to go back and forth between the bass or your thumb, >> [music] >> and then your other three fingers together. All right. So, we've got >> [music] >> and you're going to go back and forth like that. >> [music] >> And we're doing that for each of these chords. So, for A minor 7, we've got a full measure. 1 2 [music] 3 4. Then again, our E minor and our G chords are split just like in the strumming. So, for each of those chords, you're only going to pick the back and forth once. So, on E minor, we've got base 3 2 1. G, we've got [music] base 3 2 1. Okay? And then back to A minor 7, where your thumb goes back down to the fifth, A string. [music] All right? So, for A minor 7, we've got 1 [music] 2 3 4 to E minor 1 2 to G 3 4 back [music] to A minor 7 1 >> [singing] >> 2 3 4. All right? Ain't no sunshine when [singing] she's gone. >> [music] >> It's not warm when she's away. >> [music] >> And another question I get asked all the time is on our E minor chord, you'll notice that we are picking the sixth, third, second, and first strings. And we're not even playing the ones that your left hand is currently fretting or holding down. So, if you wanted to, you can notice you can play that exact pattern without fretting your E minor chord. And it sounds exactly [music] the same. So, feel free to take your entire left hand off if you want to. The reason I would advise not to do that is just because if you pick a different string than you're meaning to, >> [music] >> it'll still sound good cuz it's part of the chord, okay? Uh but I just wanted to address that. So, let's go ahead and go over the little verse here. We've got A minor 7 >> [music] >> E minor [singing] G A minor 7. Again. >> [music] >> When we get to [music] our E minor and our D minor, each of these is going to get two measures. So, on our E minor we've got 1 2 [music and singing] 3 4 2 3 4. Same on D minor. 1 2 3 [music] 4 2 2 3 4. And then back to our familiar line. >> [music] >> All right. Ain't no sunshine when she's gone. [singing] It's not [music] warm when she's away. Ain't no sunshine [singing] when she's gone, and she's always [music] gone too long anytime [singing] she goes away. All [music] right. That is a very simple way you can kind of fingerpick through this song. All right, guys. So, one last time, go ahead and pause the video and take as much time as you need to really look over this picking pattern. This one is fairly simple if you're brand new to picking because there are so few chord shapes in this song. So, this is a great one for beginners if you want to try it out. Um but once you have this under your belt, we can go ahead and put everything we've learned in this tutorial together to play through the song. Ain't no sunshine when she's gone. It's [music] not warm [singing] when she's away. >> [music] >> Ain't no sunshine when she's gone, [singing] and she's always gone too [music] long anytime she goes away. [singing] Want to have fun jamming through the rest of the song with me? To make sure to check out my Patreon page where you can unlock access to this as well as all my other fast track and play along guitar tutorials. I'll make sure to leave a link for it in the description box down below. If you enjoyed learning this song with me, then you should definitely check out this video. [music] Not only does it have a super similar vibe and feel, but it's just as fun and easy to play. So, I'll see you over there. Bye.