Cruel Summer by Taylor Swift Tutorial/Lesson
Cruel Summer
G, C, D, Bm, Em
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Video transcript
hey everyone my name is Ellen and today I'm gonna be showing you guys how to play cruel summer by Taylor Swift on the guitar so stay tuned if this is something that you want to learn you know that bad so the song is not gonna be too hard if you're a beginner aside from the fact that there is gonna be one Barre chord but if that's something that you're having trouble with I do have a video right here about how to practice and get better at Barre chords so make sure to check that out if that's something that you're struggling with but to play this song my guitar is in standard tuning I have my capo on the 2nd fret to play this in the original key with Taylor on top of that we're only going to need to know 5 chords and 1 strumming pattern and that'll be it so let's go ahead and jump into an overview of what I'm going to be teaching you in this tutorial all right so like I said at the beginning you only need to know five chords to play through this whole song and those are G C D B minor and E minor so if you already know those chords and that's perfect and great but if you want me to break that down for you and go over how those chords look and how to play them make sure to skip to this time right here and I'll kind of go through the chords with you and then after that we're gonna go into our strumming patterns and any of you familiar with my other tutorials now I always start with a practice pattern which is just one simple down strum on every chord change I think this is a great way to kind of ease into any song when you're a beginner at guitar because it really helps you get used to the song and where those core transitions are gonna be so if this is something that you don't think you need to go through then that's fine we'll just move on but if you do want to go through an example of what this sounds like within the song make sure to skip to this time right here and I will kind of go through an example and break it down for you a little bit more and after that we're gonna jump into the strumming pattern that I like to use with this song as you can see it's a little bit long it goes down down down up down up down down down up and it's gonna sound a little something like this so I know this strumming pattern seems a little bit long and complicated so if you want me to break it down for you a little bit more and go through examples of what it sounds like in the song and kind of like lead you through it make sure to skip to this time right here and I will break that down for you a little bit more and get you a little more used to it but if you feel like you already have the rhythm just by listening to me play it a little bit then go ahead and skip to the end of the video here where we go through the play through and that is where I have the lyrics and chords and everything you need to know on screen in front of you so if you feel pretty confident go ahead and skip there and we'll go through the whole song together but if you do need a little bit more guidance let's go ahead and go through 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 like I said there are only five and we're going to start with our G chord which looks like this and sounds like this after that we've got C which looks like this and sounds like this next we have D which looks like this and sounds like this after that we have B minor which is our Barre chord and that looks like this and sounds like this and then the last chord you need to know is Imai nur which looks like this and sounds like this and those are the only five chords you need to know for this song alright so once you have those chords memorized make sure you can transition between them because this song does move a little bit quickly if you need help with transitioning between chords faster I do have a TMT for that as well where I give you tips and tricks and also show you a few exercises that you can do to get better at those but with that being said let's go ahead and move on to these strumming patterns that you can use for this song SHINee totally with the prize you know that always waiting for you to be waiting boom boom then we'll roll the dice angels roll their eyes alright so like I always say if you're brand new to guitar the first strumming pattern I always suggest that you use with any new song is our practice pattern which is just one down strum on the beat for every chord change this is really going to help you get used to those chord transitions get faster at them and also kind of get used to the song so you know where we expect the chord transitions when the strumming patterns get a little bit harder so let's go ahead and go through an example of this I'm gonna put my G chord on since that's the first chord in the chorus and let's go ahead and go through the course all you want to do is strum down once on your G then you go to your b-minor strum down once then we have E minor strum down once and then we have C strum down once alright and you're just gonna go through the entire song like that kind of sing through it so that you know where those chord transitions are gonna be happening on what lyrics and things like that so here's an example for the chorus its shape of your body is blue the feeling I got in it alright and you basically want to do that from the very beginning of the song to the very end you can even fast-forward here to the end and do the one down strum while I play through the song just to get used to it but once you've done that and you feel pretty confident with knowing where those chord transitions are going to take place then we can move on to our strumming pattern so the strumming pattern I like to use for this song is quite long as you can see it's down down down down up down up down down down up and even though it is kind of lengthy once you get the rhythm of it I think it becomes a lot easier on top of that we are going to be transitioning between our chords in the middle of this strumming pattern whenever we do the verses so let me go ahead and explain it to you a little bit more let's go ahead and put our G chord down and we're just gonna go through the motions of this pattern all right so we've got down down down up down down down all right so make sure to take that as slowly as you need to for as long as you need to before you get the motions there are gonna be a lot of circle motions where you have to go from a Down strum back to a Down strum sweep to circle your hand back around so if you're beginner those are all things that are great to practice so that you can get more used to more difficult strumming patterns but moving on let's go ahead and put this in rhythm so you can hear what it sounds like in rhythm so let me play it for you once you can hear it 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & down down down down up down down down up all right why don't you put your G chord on and try that with me let's slow it down just a little bit so you guys can keep up one and two and three and four and down down down up down up down down down down all right great so if you are able to keep up with me then let's move on if you were not then make sure to rewind and keep practicing it at that pace until you can get it so once you've gotten the rhythm down at that slower speed let's go ahead and speed it up a little bit so that we can get it at the tempo that the song actually is in so let me play it for you one so you can hear it one and two and three and four and down all right so I know that is significantly faster than what we just practiced it out so if you cannot keep up at that tempo go ahead and pause the video and do it at the slower tempo and slowly speed yourself up until you're able to keep up with me at this tempo so go ahead and put your G chord on and let's practice that together at tempo one and two and three and four and all right great and so once you can get it at tempo now all we want to do is put in those core transitions so I want to start with the chorus first because in the chorus what we're going to do is play through this entire pattern through once for each chord change so let me put the chord progressions up here for you can see in the chorus we're going from G to B minor to E minor to C so let's go ahead and try those chord transitions we've got our G chord on and we're gonna play the pattern through once then you switch to your next chord which is B minor and do the same exact thing then we have E minor down and then see all right awesome so that's basically how you're gonna play most of this song is going through this entire pattern through once for each chord change however in the verses she does kind of switch chords a little bit faster so I wanted to show you how we are going to break that up in this strumming pattern so let's bring it back around to the first first the strumming pattern is going to be exactly the same as you just played it but what we're gonna do a little bit differently is we're going to change our chords in the middle of the strumming pattern so if you put your C chord on instead of holding it down for the whole strumming pattern what we actually want to do is switch to our next chord which is our D chord in the middle of this pattern so for the first chord we have down down down down up and then for the second chord we finish it out with down up down down down up alright so let me go ahead and go through an example for you at the first verse we've got C into D and the way you would do that is you would play your C chord for the first half of this pattern and then right here in the middle of the pattern you would switch to your next chord which is our D chord and then finish out the pattern now all right so see how the pattern is still exactly the same as we just practice but we're switching our cords a little bit faster because we're switching in the middle so go ahead and put your C chord on and try that with me we're only doing half we've got now switch to your D chord and finish it out down up down down down perfect so once you understand where we're gonna put those chord transitions now we just have to put the rest of them in so let me go ahead and put that on screen for you guys so with our C chord we've got down down down down up switch to D down up down down down up switch to your B minor chord down down down down and then switch to your Imai 'nor chord down up down down down up all right perfect so once you understand where those chord transitions are gonna be again what you want to do now is speed it up so that we can play that tempo so go ahead and put your C chord on since that's the first chord in the verse and let's speed it up a little one and two and three and four and all right perfect so once you can do the faster chord transitions in the verse and then you can also hold through the whole pattern for the courses you pretty much have the entire song down one last thing that I did want to show you guys though you do not need to do this in your cover at all but it's just something that I suggest because I do think it sounds a little bit cooler is I will take this exact same pattern and what I'll do is during the verses and the bridge and things like that I will put a little bit of a palm mute on it so what I'm doing there is I'm taking the side of my hand that has my pic in it and while I'm strumming down because you can hear when you normally strum down your strings ring a lot right but if you kind of rest you the side of your hand here on your strings really lightly between your sound hole in your bridge and then you do that strum it kind of mutes the ringing alright so you can still hear the notes but it's not ringing and not as loud as when you don't do the palm mute so why don't you go ahead and try this with me put your hand on your strings really lightly between the sound hole and the bridge and we'll do this exact same pattern exactly how we just did it and you'll hear the difference with this little palm mute alright so did you hear the difference there it's just a little bit more muted a little bit more percussive and I just think that when you switch up the guitar whenever you do like a cover or something it kind of gives it a little more interest and helps to drive the song so what I will be doing in my cover is doing the palm mute during the verses in the fridge and then letting it ring out during the courses but like I said this is not something that you have to do if you like the way that it rings or you are having struggles with the palm muting thing then go ahead and just do the whole song with it ringing and I think that'll sound fine too alright but once you have those chords memorized you practice transitioning between them and you've got that strumming pattern down at tempo let's go ahead and mix all of those things that we learn together and we can play through the whole song always waiting for you just to caches of love Devils rolling dice angels roll their eyes and if uh Bleach will be the last No this is cold summer by Taylor Swift good luck beep you dream hi and the quiet of the night you know that I caught it bad bad boy shiny toy with the price you know that I bought it killing me I'm always waiting for you to be waiting below demos roll the dice angels roll their eyes doesn't let me Maci watch the vending machine I'm not buying it I will just do it under these trying times are not trying cut the headlights summers are always waiting for you just to cut to the blood Devils really nice angels roll their eyes and if I bleed you'll be the last no oh it's I'm drunk in the back of the car car look baby coming home blue bar set up fine but it wasn't true wanna keep seekers just to keep you and I stuck in the laconic gate every night that summer just until my fade I scream for whatever it's worth I love you ain't that the wording you ever heard he looks up grinning like a devil all right so that was my tutorial for a cruel summer by Taylor Swift I really hope that it helped you if it did make sure to give me a thumbs up down below as well as to leave a comment of any other song you want me to do a tutorial for in the future here are my social media sites in case you'd like to follow me on any of those that's just why I do fun little things like behind the scenes looks and sneak peeks poles and giveaways and this is also where I go to find someone to feature in my new segment forever features this week we have achieved from Trinidad playing say so by dosha cat let's give it a listen so if you want to be featured in an upcoming tutorial make sure to follow me on Instagram and post a short cover of you singing any song that you learned from any of my tutorials use that hashtag forever features in the description so 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 music is forever shirt and you can find this in my merch store links down below as well as under this video every purchase there helps to make this channel a little bit better and helps me continue making free tutorials for you guys so thanks so much for anyone who has supported me in that way and yeah I guess that wraps things up so I will see you guys in my next video bye you