Cornelia Street by Taylor Swift Tutorial/Lesson
Cornelia Street
G, D/F#, Em7, Cadd9, Dsus4
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Video transcript
hey everyone my name is Ellen and today I'm gonna be showing you guys how to play Cornelia Street by Taylor Swift on the guitar so stay tuned - this is something that you want to learn and make sure to subscribe to my channel that way you never miss out on another new video so in this video I will be specifically teaching how Taylor played this in her live from Paris version instead of the album version but they're very similar and you can play it either way using this tutorial but just keep that in mind that that's how I will be basing most of this tutorial off of so to play this in the same key that Taylor did in her live performance make sure your guitar is in standard tuning and go ahead and put your capo on the fourth fret so beyond that we only need to know five different chords to play through this song and none of them are Barre chords that's going to be really great if you're a beginner and two strumming patterns so let's go ahead and go through an overview of what I'll be teaching you in this tutorial so like I said the song is going to require you to know five different chords those are G D / f-sharp E minor seven C ad nine and D suspended four so if you're not familiar with any of these chords it's okay you can go ahead and go to this time here where I will you know show you how to play them and things like that don't let the names of the chords discourage you they sound kind of complicated but they're actually really easy to play so no worries there but if you are already familiar with these chords then we can move on to the strumming patterns that I like to use for this song so the first strumming pattern I always teach in all of my tutorials is one down strum on the beat for every chord change I normally refer to this as my practice pattern but Taylor Swift does actually use this one down strum pattern throughout her performance so we're gonna call this strumming pattern one and so if you want me to go over kind of how that sounds and how you would use that in the song then go ahead and skip to this time here so I can show that to you within the song but if you don't think that you need to practice that and you want to just move on then that's perfect we can go on to our second strumming pattern so our second strumming pattern is a lot longer as you can see it's down up up down down up and it's gonna sound a little something like this all right so you're just gonna want to take this drawing pattern and play through one time for every chord change in the song and so if you want me to kind of go through what that would sound like and break it down for you a little bit more and kind of go through it more slowly with you go ahead and skip to this time here so that I can show you how you can use this in the song but if you feel like you already got it just by listening to me play it a little bit then go ahead and skip to the play through here at the end where I will put all of the chords and lyrics and everything you need to know on screen in front of you to play through the whole song both all of that being said let's go ahead and jump into the more in-depth part of this tutorial and we'll start with the chord all right so let's take a closer look at these chords we need to know like I said there are only five and we're gonna start with our G chord which looks like this and sounds like this after that we have another cord and I honestly couldn't figure out what the name of this cord is I looked forever for it but I couldn't figure it out so I'm gonna call it D over F sharp because that looks like the closest cord anyways it looks like this and it sounds like this so for the rest of the tutorial I'm gonna call this chord D over F sharp even though that might not be a hundred percent what it actually is after that we're gonna go into our E minor seven chord which looks like this and sounds like this then after that we have our C ad nine chord which looks like this and sounds like this and then the last chord you need to know is D suspended four which looks like this and sounds like this now something else I do want to point out about all of these chords it's gonna be great if you're a beginner because notice how all of these chords your pinkie and ring finger are never gonna move so we've got G D over F sharp E minor 7 and 9 and DSS 4 alright so it'll be helpful for beginners who are practicing transitioning because you only have to worry about two fingers instead of all four so just a little tip there in case' that's not something that you noticed alright so once you have those chords memorized go ahead and take a few moments to practice transitioning between them the song is pretty repetitive in the chord progressions that it goes through so taking the time to practice those transitions right now is really gonna help you be able to get those strumming patterns and things like that later but with that being said let's go ahead and jump into the strumming patterns that I like to use with this song so like I said the first starting pattern I always like to teach in all of my tutorials is one simple down strum on the beat for every chord change this is gonna be strumming pattern 1 and it's just a really great way to kind of get yourself used to the song if you're brand new to guitar it's a really great way to kind of get your feet wet with singing and things like that while you're playing so let's go ahead and put our G chord on since that's the first chord of the song and all I want you to do is do one down strum on the G chord then you would switch to your D slash f-sharp then we've got our E minor 7 1 down strum and then we've got our C at night and 1 down strum alright and so you would basically want to take this through the whole song go ahead and practice the singing and things like that to get used to where those chord transitions are gonna be that way it'll be helpful for when you jump into the next strumming pattern so let me go ahead and show you a little example of what this would sound like in the song I'm gonna go ahead and start at the very beginning with my G chord on 1 2 3 4 3 4 3 7 3 4 we were in the back seat trunk on something stronger than the drinks in the bar 3 4 principai son Cornelia Street casually in the car 2 3 4 2 3 4 all right so that's just an example of what I want you to do so if you're brand new to guitar like I said go ahead and take that for the entire song until you're used to where those chord transitions are gonna be but after you've done that we can jump into our second strumming pattern so as you can see our second strumming pattern is a lot longer it's down up up down up up down down up I know this is a lot longer but don't let it intimidate you we will be breaking this down a little bit more and you know slowly easing into it so you should be able to play this by the end of the tutorial let's go ahead and put our G chord on since that's the first chord in the song and I just kind of want to take you through the motions of this pattern okay so we've got down circle your hand around then we have another one just the same and then down circle down so if you're a beginner what I mean when I say circle is sometimes people are used to just strumming down up down up down up like that and it can be kind of hard for them to do a Down strum by followed by a Down strum or an up strum followed by an up strum so whenever you do that you just kind of have to circle your hand around to get it ready in that position so we've got down up and you've just circle to get back up okay so that's all I mean by the circle it's something that you should practice if you're a beginner but now that we got the motions down let's go ahead and jump into the rhythm of this pattern so let me play it for you once you can go ahead and hear it one two one two three four all right so why don't you guys put your G chord on and try that with me I'll count us in and we just want to play this in rhythm now okay one two one two three four down up up down up up down down down up down up down all right great so hopefully you got the rhythm in it will take a little bit of practice to get it at that speed which is at tempo so if you have trouble keeping up with me right then go ahead and just pause the video and practice at your own speed until you can get it a little bit faster but I am gonna go ahead and move on so after you get the rhythm what you want to do now is put in those chord transitions so let me go ahead and put that on screen for us so we can see if the chord transition is and now like I said at the beginning we're gonna play this strumming pattern through one time for every chord okay so let's go ahead and practice that put your G chord on and we're gonna do exactly what we just did let's play through it once then you'd switch your next chord which is our D over F down up down up then we've got our E minor seven then C at nine very awesome so once you've got the chord transitions in there all you want to do now is practice stringing them together without stopping so let's go ahead and try that now with our G chord on one two one two three four minor seven yet night again strong all right awesome so again if you weren't able to keep up with me at that tempo no worries just make sure to pause the video and practice at your own tempo until you can keep up but that is about the speed that I'm gonna go here at the end for the cover I almost forgot I do want to sneak in a little third strumming pattern for you I was just playing through the cover at the end when I realized that she sometimes does this so our third strumming pattern is just gonna be eight down strums and she'll only use this about twice during her cover but sometimes when she's going from the pre-chorus into the chorus she'll just hold a Down strum on her chord progressions so let me just show you really quick what that would be like so that you can do that in your cover if you want to do it the way she did so specifically I'm doing this between the pre-chorus and the chorus so let's go ahead and practice this going from our second strumming pattern leading into our third so with my G chord on we've got just this strumming strumming pattern to that we just practiced down up down up up down down up and then here on this C at nine when you're going from the pre-course of the course she'll just hold it down down down down down down down right eight down strums one two three four five so it's super easy you just want to if you want to put that into your cover she does do that a few times so sorry I forgot about it when I was doing the instruction part of this video but that is something that she also uses so feel free to add that in as well whenever you're doing your cover if you want to but with that being said let's go ahead and put all of this stuff that we learned together the chords the transitioning the strumming patterns put all of that together so we can play through the entire song again I will have the chords and lyrics and everything you need to know on screen in front of you so yeah let's go ahead and get into this play through this is Cornelia Street by Taylor Swift the buck we were in the stronger drinks you hope it never ends I never work on merely a street again that's the kind of a heartbreak time can never mend I never are Cornelia Street again baby window sunrise you I hope and never you virgins as a judge I hope I never lose you I never walk Cornelia Street again I rent a place on Cornelia Street as a casually in the car so that was my tutorial for Cornelia Street by Taylor Swift I really hope that you liked it and if it helped you make sure to give me a thumbs up down below as well as to subscribe to my channel and turn on that little Bell notification 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 that's just where do fun things like behind the scenes looks at things coming up I'll pull you guys on things you want to see I'll do an occasional giveaway and this is also where I find people to feature in my new segment forever features this week we have lynn from vietnam playing wildest dreams by taylor swift let's give it a listen so if you want to be featured in the next video make sure to follow me on Instagram at X for every fateful X post a short cover of you playing any song that you've learned on any of my videos on my channel and use that hashtag forever features in the descriptions that I can find it and the next feature spot could be you one last little plug if you liked the shirt I was wearing in today's tutorial this is my forever faithful guitar shirt you can find this along with a lot of other designs in my merch store link down below or also found under this video every purchase there really helps this 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 and 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