Bad Habits by Ed Sheeran Tutorial/Lesson
Bad Habits
Bm, Dmaj7, G, A, Em7
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Video transcript
wow hey everyone my name is ellen and today i'm going to be showing you guys how to play bad habits by ed sheeran on the guitar so stay tuned if this is something that you'd like to learn and guys before we jump into it i just want to give a huge shout out to my patrons over on my patreon page for voting for this song as this month's patron picks if you want a little bit of voting power on the song tutorials that you see here on my channel make sure to check out my patreon page link below all right guys so i'm going to go ahead and classify this song as a beginner slash intermediate song just because there is a bar chord as well as a solo riff which is optional but beyond that it is pretty beginner friendly so let's go ahead and jump into the overview to play this song in the original key go ahead and make sure your guitar is in standard tuning and we will not need a capo to play this in the same key as ed sheeran on top of that we've got five chords to learn and only one of them has to be played as a bar chord which is our b minor chord and i'll go through all those chords in a second i also have two main strumming patterns to show you as well as that cool solo riff that you hear throughout the song so with that being said let's go ahead and jump into the tutorial all right guys so i've zoomed in a little bit so we can take a closer look at these cords like i said you only need to know five for the whole song and the first is going to be our b minor chord which is our bar chord and that looks like this and sounds like this after that we have our d major seven chord which looks like this and sounds like this and just so you know another alternate fingering for this can be just barring the top three strings with your first finger like this so it'll sound the same and this is actually how i will be playing it throughout this tutorial next we have our g chord which looks like this and sounds like this after that we've got a which looks like this and sounds like this and then the last chord you need to know for this song is our e minor 7 which looks like this and sounds like this and those are the five chords you need to know to play the song alright guys so once you have those chords memorized make sure to take some time to practice transitioning between them the great thing about this song is that the order of the chords is basically the same throughout the whole song so just make sure that you can transition between them pretty smoothly because it does go a little bit quickly if that's something that you need help with i do have a video right here that breaks down how to practice chord transitions and things like that so make sure to check that out if that's something you need help with but with that being said let's go ahead and jump into the strumming patterns that i'd like to show you for this song so if you're familiar with any of my other tutorials you'll know that i always start out with kind of a practice pattern which is just one single down strum on the beat for every chord change this is a great way to kind of get used to the song practice those transitions as well as get used to singing and playing at the same time so let me go ahead and just show you an example go ahead and put your b minor chord down since that's the first chord in the song and all you want to do is strum down once then you go to your next chord d major seven then we have g and then we have a all right so if you want to play this um kind of in the rhythm of the song there is a little bit of special like counting that you have to get used to because all the other strumming patterns follows the same counting pattern okay so let me just go ahead and show you with our b minor chord on we've got one and two and three and four n then d major seven one and two and three and four and then for g we're gonna have to hold this kind of like for two measures so we've got one and two and three and four and again and two and a and four and so you can kind of see there with the counting we're going to split that last measure between the g chord and the a chord kind of right in the middle again like i said this is important to kind of understand this now with the single down strum so that the other strumming patterns are a little bit easier so let's go ahead and put this a little bit more in rhythm and i'll put some singing with it just so you can kind of hear where all of these chord transitions are going to be and make sure to kind of take some time to look at what word you're singing whenever you're doing those chord transitions it's really going to help with people who are struggling with singing and playing at the same time all right so even with this really simple strumming pattern there's a lot of stuff that we can pick up on with the song especially that rhythm where it goes from g to a we're going to be doing that transition a little bit quicker than the rest so just little things like that are good to pick up on when you're kind of breaking the song down and stripping it down to its easiest form but with that being said let's go ahead and jump into the strumming patterns that i do actually like to use in my cover playthrough version um the first strumming pattern as you can see is just eight down strums and it's gonna sound a little something like this now this strumming pattern is pretty straightforward what we're gonna do is play each chord one time with this measure so we're gonna play each chord with eight down strums so let's go ahead and go through an example with my b minor chord on i've got down down down down down down all right then you go to your next chord d major seven one two three four five six seven eight then we've got g and then like i said with our practice pattern it's really important that you understand the rhythm breakdown here so with our g to our a chord for this last measure we're actually going to split this um strumming pattern kind of in half not really in half but like kind of in the middle and where you see this little vertical line is where i want you to change those chords so for the first three down strums we're going to do g 1 2 3 then you switch to your a chord and finish out the strumming pattern four five six seven eight all right so it'll make sense if we put it all together again with our b minor chord one two three four all right so hopefully you got that transition it's really quick there in the middle of the strumming pattern but as long as you get that kind of rhythm down that's probably like 90 of this entire song so it's good if you can get that down now a few things that you can do to enhance this strumming pattern to make it sound a little bit better the first thing is we're going to accent certain beats so as you can see we've got eight down strums plain old channel here and what i want you to do is accent the first the fourth and the seventh down strum right so now it's gonna sound a little more something like this one two three four five six seven eight one two three five six seven eight one two three four five six seven eight all right and all i'm doing there to accent those is i'm just doing a little bit extra um force whenever i'm strumming those just giving it a little bit of more of a push instead of just like relaxed strumming okay and then the second thing you can do to kind of dress this up and it makes it sound really cool is we're going to add a palm mute so what i'm doing there is i'm just taking the side of my playing hand with my pick in it and i'm just gently laying it on my strings um you want to get it kind of close to the bridge here that's going to give you the best sound the most like robust open sound and what you want to do is just kind of lay your fingers sorry lay your palm there as you're strumming so you can hear it's kind of dampening the sound kind of muting the strings a little bit and we want that because it'll give it more of a rhythmic feel to the song one two three four five six seven eight all right so you can see there with the palm mute i am still doing those accented beats as well so let me go ahead and speed this up a little bit and show you what it sounds like within the song i like to use this strumming pattern for the verses so let me go ahead and just start there and show you how that sounds one two ready go one two three four five six seven all right so you can kind of see there it gives that really like driving kind of factor to the song i think it sounds pretty good with this song so um with that being said let's go ahead and jump into the second strumming pattern that i want to show you that i like to use for the choruses all right guys now for the choruses the um actual chord progression is going to be relatively the same we're going to the same chords in the same order um and again you're going to want to know when to transition between that g and that a because it does go a little faster but first let me go ahead and show you these strumming patterns so strumming pattern two is going to be down mute down up down up and it's gonna sound a little something like this alright and as with strumming pattern one we're going to want to play this pattern through one time for each chord until we get to that g and a chord it's going to be a little different but first of all let's go ahead and practice the rhythm together so with our b minor chord on it's going to go down mute and all i'm doing there is i'm taking the side of my hand just slapping the string stopping them from you know ringing okay so we've got down mute down up down and that's the whole pattern so let me go ahead and put that in rhythm all right and like i said we're going to do that one time through for each chord so we've got the minor major 7 g and then again when we go from g to a here it's going to kind of split this pattern kind of down the middle a little bit so what i want you to do is play g for the first part which is down mute then we're going to switch to our a chord and finish out the pattern which is the down up down up part all right so if with our g chord we've got down mute and then a down up down all right again that last measure is g a all right so the pattern's not changing at all we're just changing our chords in the middle so let me go ahead and play that through one time without stopping with all of the chord transitions in there so starting on our b minor chord we've got down mute down up down up d major seven g one time through g mute a up down all right and like i said um that is the pattern that i like to use for the choruses of the song um at that point it kind of gets a little bit louder and more intense and i think that this strumming pattern really fits well with that part of the song so let me go ahead and speed it up again a little bit and show you what that sounds like with the chorus my bad habits lead to late night with a stranger all right and as you can see sometimes the chords change in the chorus you saw that e minor seven thrown in there so uh just be wary of that when you're doing the play through as well but most of the song does go from b minor to d major seven to g to a so if you can do those transitions you're like 80 of the way there already but with that being said those are the two strumming patterns that i like to use for this song and like i said i'll go back and forth between strumming pattern one for the verses and serving pattern two for the courses of course if you plan on doing a cover do whatever you want i think that these are just suggestions so whatever strumming patterns you're naturally feeling i would say to go with those it'll be a lot easier to sing too if you can just do the strumming pattern that you you know prefer but those are my suggestions so now let's go ahead and zoom in and i will show you how to play that little solo riff that you hear through all right guys so i've zoomed in again so we can take a closer look at this solo riff that you hear throughout the song this whole thing is optional but it does kind of add to the song if you want to try to put that in there so basically i'm going to go ahead and put the tab on screen for you so you can see what it looks like and i'll just kind of explain how we're going to play through this so with our b minor chord on so our chord shape is on this is the first chord in the song and if you keep your hand here in this chord shape you can actually play through the first part of this tab so what we're going to do is play our b string twice then our g back to b and then high e all right so as long as you have your b minor chord shape down this should just be a matter of looking at which strings you're picking now if you don't like holding that bar chord shape down what you could do is just put your fingers on the strings that we're going to be playing so this is another kind of fingering that you can do as you can see i'm just putting my ring finger on the fourth fret of the g string my middle finger on the third fret of the b string and my first finger on the second fret of the high e string so if you wanted to do it that way that is a little easier on the fingers so again we're just gonna go all right so that's the first little part there the next little part is going to go along with our d major 7 chord so again if you want to put that chord shape down that'll make this picking a little bit easier because then you're just focusing on the right hand and the strings are going to be the same so you're again going to pick the b string twice then the g string back to b and then high e all right so we're halfway done so again with our b minor chord shape then you go to your d major chord shape d major seven sorry about that okay so from here we're going to go to our g chord now when we're picking these strings they are going to be the same strings that we've been picking so the easiest way i think to do this is just to play the open string so what you're going to do is pick play the open b string twice then open g back to open b then just take your first finger here and press down on the second fret of the b string all right so it's open open open two right and you'll do that twice right so the way i would suggest this is with this fingering we've got all right so this repeats throughout the entire song as the strumming or the other chords are going on then you would repeat it all right and again like i said that kind of plays in the background throughout the entire song so you can put it in wherever you see fit for your cover um but that is how i would suggest playing that little solo riff so with that being said let's go ahead and go back and we can play through the whole song all right guys so now that you have those chords memorized you've practiced transitioning between them you know the strumming patterns and that solo riff it's your turn to have a little bit of fun so make sure to join me right here to go through the whole song where i will do the play through and i'll have all the chords and lyrics and everything you need to know on screen in front of you and we'll play through the whole song there um of course if that's a little bit too fast for you or you need a little extra help you can always check out my patreon page where i have little extras to help you learn a little bit better one of which is a customizable backing track that you can interact with and turn things on and off slow things down or speed things up so that you can really tailor your practice session to what you need to focus on the most i also have printable downloadable guitar guides for all of the songs that you see on my channel including this one so make sure to check that out on my patreon page as well and if you still need a little extra help on top of that you can always send me a video of you practicing and asking me your questions on what you need help with and i will send you a video response with my advice on how to improve back so again all of that is available on my patreon page which is linked down below so make sure to check that out speaking of which i did just want to give a huge thank you and shout out to my existing patrons over on my patreon page i will have all of their names listed on screen right now thank you guys so much for supporting me and my channel and making videos just like this one possible you guys are awesome and you rock all right guys but that does conclude today's tutorial so make sure to give me a thumbs up down below if you found this helpful as well as subscribe to my channel that way you never miss out on a new video here are my social media sites in case you'd like to follow me on any of those that's just where i do fun things like behind the scenes looks at things coming up i'll pull you guys on what you want to see next and i also do a few giveaways on there each year so make sure to check those out if you'd like to so don't forget to check out the playthrough fast track version of this song where we can jam through the whole thing together i hope to see you over there and until next time i think that concludes this video so thanks for watching bye do you