august by Taylor Swift Tutorial/Lesson
august
D, G, Em, A
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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 august by taylor swift off her brand new folklore album on the guitar so stay tuned if this is something you want to learn make sure to subscribe to my channel that way you never miss out on another new tutorial and follow me on instagram for your chance to win a free lesson with me so the song is gonna be really great if you're a beginner make sure your guitar is in standard tuning and go ahead and put your capo on the third fret if you want to play this in the same key as taylor swift's original version on top of that we only need to know four chords to play through the entire song and none of them are barre chords and i'll also be showing you two strumming patterns which you can use to play through the whole song so like i said it's very beginner friendly so let's go ahead and jump into the overview of what i'll be teaching you in this tutorial all right so like i said you only need to know four chords to play through this song and those are d g e minor and a so as you can see none of them are bar chords and the great thing about this song is this is the exact chord progression that's going to happen for the entire song so if you're someone who's struggling with transitions this is going to be a really great thing for you because you won't have to worry about transitioning between different chords at different times so if you're already familiar with how to play these chords and that's great however if you do want a refresher and want me to break it down for you and show you what these chords look like then go ahead and skip to this time here where i will go over the chords but after that we're going to jump into our strumming patterns so our first strumming pattern is something i always start with it's just a one simple down strum on the beat for every chord change i always suggest beginners start with this that way you can get used to the song and you can get more familiar with where you're going to be doing those chord transitions so if you want to go through an example of what this would sound like in the song make sure to skip to this time here where i will take you through an example of how to use that first strumming pattern but if you feel like you don't need to go through that that's totally fine we can move on to our second strumming pattern so as you can see our second strumming pattern is a little bit longer we've got down down down up down down down up and it's going to sound a little something like this so what you want to do is apply this pattern through one time for every chord change it is a little bit on the longer side so if you do want me to break this down for you a little bit and break down that rhythm and things like that make sure to skip to this time here where i will slowly take you through how to play this strumming pattern however if you feel like you already got the rhythm and everything just by watching me play it then make sure to check out the play through here at the end where i will go through the entire song and have all of the chords and lyrics and everything you need to know on screen in front of you so with that being said let's go ahead and jump into the more in-depth part of this tutorial and we'll start with the chords just in case all right so let's go ahead and take a closer look at these chords like i said there's only four to play the entire song and we'll start with our d chord which looks like this and sounds like this after that we've got our g chord which looks like this and sounds like this next we have our e minor chord which looks like this and sounds like this and then the last chord you need to know is our a chord which looks like this and sounds like this and those are the only four chords you need to know to play this song all right so after you have those chords memorized take a few moments to make sure you can transition between them if transitioning is something that's hard for you then make sure to check out my tmt on tips and tricks on how to get better at transitioning between chords faster but again like i said at the beginning if that's something you're struggling with with transitions and things like that the song is going to be great because the entire song does follow the same chord progression from d to g to e minor to a for the entire song so it's going to be really great for people who are struggling with transitioning um but yeah with that being said let's go ahead and jump into the strumming patterns that you can use with this song all right so the first strumming pattern is just one simple down strum on the b for every chord change normally i refer to this as my practice pattern however i do use it in the little cover at the end so it's really great for people who are just starting out on guitar and having a little bit of troubles with strumming you could play this strumming pattern for the entire song and it would sound really pretty so um let's go ahead and go through an example of what this would sound like i have my d chord on because that's the first chord in the song and all you really want to do is just do one down strum for every chord change throughout the song so we've got our d chord then we've got g strum down once then e minor and then a all right and what you want to do is just take that exact same strumming pattern and go through the entire song sing along with it and just make sure you know which word and stuff you'll be doing those transitions on so let me go ahead and go through the first verse for you so you can kind of get an example of how to use this never needed anything more whispers of are you sure never have i ever before all right so basically you want to do that for the entire song until you're used to where those transitions will be and then once you have gone that far then we can jump into our second strumming pattern so our second strumming pattern is a little bit longer we've got down down up down down down up i know that this seems a little bit intimidating especially if you're new to guitar but don't worry we are going to break this down so let's go ahead and just start with going through the motion so let's put our d chord on since again that's the first chord in the song and let's just go through the motions we've got down down up down down up all right so if you're new to guitar and strumming is new to you and things it can be a little bit counterintuitive to have to circle your hand around so there are going to be a few places in this pattern where you want to circle your hand around and get ready for the next down following a down strum or up following another up strum so just make sure that that's something you're aware of and that you're practicing if you're new but that being said let's go ahead and move on and put this in rhythm so you can hear what this pattern sounds like in rhythm so let me go ahead and play it for you once first we've got down down down up down down down up down down up down up down down down up all right so why don't you put on your d chord and try that with me and i'll count us in one and two and three and four and down down down up down down down all right so how was that hopefully it wasn't too hard um if you did struggle with that a little bit make sure to pause the video and practice that a few more times however i am going to move on because the tempo that we were going at just now is pretty slow compared to the original tempo so the next thing you want to do after you have that rhythm slowly is we want to speed it up little by little so let's go ahead and challenge ourselves to speed it up a little bit more let me go ahead and show you first one and two and three and four and down down all right so it is a little bit faster than we just practiced it out but i know you can do it so let's go ahead and put on our d chords and try that again i'll count us in one and two and three and four and down down down up down all right awesome so if you were able to keep up with me at that speed then you're doing great if you were not no worries just pause the video and practice that a few more times until you can get it at that speed but let's push ourselves just a little bit more we're going to speed it up to tempo now okay so let me go ahead and show you once how that's going gonna sound one two three four down down down up down down down up down up down down down all right so that is at tempo it is a lot faster so let's go ahead and try that together put your d chord on and i'll count us in one two three four down down down up down up down down down up down up down down down up down up down down awesome so hopefully you were able to keep up at that tempo again if you were not just make sure to pause the video and practice that a few more times until you can keep up at tempo but um what you want to do after you get it up to speed is you want to put those chord transitions back in so let me go ahead and put that on the screen so you can see it again this whole song follows this transition from d to g to e minor to a so what we're going to do is play through this whole pattern one time for each chord so let's go ahead and go through this together again we're starting with our d chord we have down down down up down up down down down up then you switch to your next chord which is g same thing down down up down up down down down up then we've got e minor down down down up down down down up and then end with a down down up down up down down down up all right perfect so now after you've practiced those transitions just string it all together without stopping one two three four d g e minor a again d g d minor you got it all right awesome so that is the strumming pattern that i like to use for this song and again this can be applied for the entire song and it sounds really great um one little thing that i did want to add in there though is sometimes when i play through this i like to add a little bit of a palm mute so what i'm doing there is i'm playing this exact same pattern but what i'm doing is taking my right hand with the pick in it and i'm just really lightly like laying it against my strings here so that when i strum down it kind of dilutes the sound a little bit makes it a little bit more muted and i just think that it kind of goes with this song because the song is kind of more on the quiet like peaceful side so what i'll do is i'll usually palm mute my verses and then i'll let the choruses ring so if that's something you want to add in there i would totally suggest doing it if you don't want to do it or you find palm muting hard you can totally skip this part too but let me go ahead and show you what this pattern sounds like with a little bit of a palm mute are all right so you can hear it with the palm year it just kind of dulls the sound a little bit and i think that that sounds good but um that's totally up to you and of course this strumming pattern is just my suggestion if you find yourself just playing something different i totally would suggest just going with whatever you're naturally feeling in your body because whatever rhythm you're feeling in your body is going to be way easier for you to sing along with later alright so once you have those strumming patterns down and you've practiced transitioning smoothly and you have those chords memorized and everything then we can go ahead and put everything we learned in this tutorial together to play through the whole song again i will have the lyrics and everything you need to know on screen in front of you so let's go ahead and jump into the play through cancel plans just in case you'd call me be behind them all so much for summer love this is august by taylor swift good luck salt air and the rest on your door i never needed are you sure never have i ever wishing i could write my name is slipped away to a moment in time cause it was never mine and i can see it's twisting in bed sheets all this slipped away like a bottle of wine cause you were never mine oh just in case you'd call and say meet me behind them all so much for summer loves i can see it's lost in the memory august slipped away to a moment in time cause it was never mine and i can see it's twisted in pet sheets august slipped away like a bottle of wine the hope of it all meet me behind the mall remember when i pulled up and said get the hope of it all for the hope of it all the hope of it all right so that was my tutorial on how to play august by taylor swift i really hope you liked it if it did help you make sure to give me a thumbs up down below as well as to subscribe to my channel that way you never miss out on another new tutorial here are my social media sites in case you'd like to follow me on any of those and one last little plug if you liked the shirt i was wearing in today's tutorial this is my music is forever shirt which you can find this and a lot of other designs in my merch store link down below as well as under this video every purchase there really helps my channel to grow and allows me to continue making these free tutorials for you guys so thank you so much to anyone who's ever supported me in that way but i think that concludes this video so thank you guys so much for watching and i will see you in my next one bye you