Curtains by Ed Sheeran Tutorial/Lesson
Curtains
C, G, Em, D, A, Bm, Am
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Video transcript
hey my name is Ellen and today I'm going to be showing you guys how to play curtains by Ed Sheeran on the guitar here's a quick overview of everything I'll be teaching in this tutorial today and with that being said let's go ahead and get started alright guys so you're gonna need to know seven different chord shapes to play through this song and we're going to go ahead and start with our C major which looks like this and sounds like this 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 course right here on YouTube so make sure to check that out the next chord shape is our G major after that we have our E minor then we have our D major we also have our a major B minor and the last chord shape you need to know is our a minor foreign chords you need to know to play this song so go ahead and pause the video and just take as much time as you need to memorize these chord shapes as well as practice transitioning back and forth between them because it will make learning the rest of the song so much easier if you do that if core transitioning fast enough is something that you're currently struggling with I would recommend checking out my practice with me Series where we build the skill together in real time but with that being said let's go ahead and jump into the strumming pattern so if you're a beginner at guitar or struggle with singing and playing at the same time the first thing I would suggest you do is go ahead and pull up the song and sing through it with a single down strum on every chord change and it's really going to help you Orient yourself to the song and just know where those chord transitions are going to take place when you're singing and things like that so here's a quick example of what that would look like can you pull the curtains let me see the sunshine I think I'm done with my Hiding Place and you found me anyway all right so that's just a quick example you would basically want to do this for the entire song and just make sure you know where those chords are going to be changing while you're singing This is actually something you do right now if you check out my patreon page I do have this whole guide available to download and print out so make sure to check that out I will link it in the description box down below as well as in this icard right up here alright guys so now to look at the full strumming pattern as you can see it's just down down down up so let's go ahead and zoom in and talk a little bit more about this Rhythm all right guys so we are going to be in an eighth note rhythm today basically this strumming is going to go really fast so we have one two three four one two three four one two three four and down down down down all right so even though it goes really fast the actual strumming pattern is fairly straightforward so basically what you want to do is you want to play this pattern one time through for every chord in the song so let's go ahead and take a look at verse one you can see we're going from E minor so you'd have down down down up to your next chord B minor down down down down up to see right and you basically want to just string those together to play through the song E minor E minor all right so just like that and you could apply this strumming pattern to the whole song but something I found to be really fun and kind of sounds really cool to do is actually to add an extra up strum right here after the first beat so instead of down down down down up we now have down up down down down up all right one and two three four and so what I like to do is I actually like to alternate my cords um I'll do the first chord with just the plain strumming pattern down down down up then for the next chord I like to do the extra up strum down up down down up so I would go down down up down up down down down up all right so on the first chord E minor we'd have down down down up then you go to B minor down up down down down up go to C and back to the first drawing pattern down down down down up to D to the second string pattern down up down all right I think it sounds really cool when you do this if it's confusing you at all like you can just stick to the you know plain strumming pattern for the whole song and it still sounds really good but when you string it together it sounds more like this E minor a minor C down down down down up down up down down down down up down down so do you see how when you vary that strumming pattern it really just brings the whole song to life and sounds a lot cooler so that's something that I like to do in my cover here but again like I said that's totally optional the last little thing that I would suggest for strumming is to add a palm mute so if you don't know what that is you basically just want to lay the side of your strumming hand right here on the top of your Bridge really ever so lightly so that when you strum it has more of a dampened muted sound and if you apply that to this strumming pattern it sounds really cool so we have E minor D minor D hide and seek ing all right if you need a little bit more help with palm eating I do have a video about that as well so I'll make sure to link that in the description if you need help but basically you could do that for the verses as well as the pre-choruses it works there too and I always wear long sleeves all right and then the beautiful thing about this strumming pattern is that if you take the Palm mute off and let it ring I think that sounds really great with the chorus but you have to remember like we're not actually changing anything about the strumming pattern we're just letting it ring instead of palm you can you pull the curtains let me see the affection sometimes all right so you can see there the strumming pattern is exactly the same all I'm doing is palm muting on the verses and then letting it ring on the choruses but the actual pattern is the same and you can apply it for the whole song and it sounds really good so again make sure to pause the video and take as much time as you need to memorize this strumming pattern as well as kind of like internalize that Rhythm so you're not thinking about it so much and it becomes just more like muscle memory like I said this strumming pattern can be applied for the entire song and it really dresses it up if you do palm mutes and no Palm views so go ahead and practice that as long as you need and then when you come back I actually wanted to show you guys a really cool little picking tab that you can do for the intro of the song that's a little bit slower so let's go ahead and jump into the picking and really quick guys if you're enjoying this video make sure to give me a thumbs up down below as well subscribe to my channel it really helps me out and I wanted to take a second to kind of quickly sponsor myself with my patreon page I offer a lot of perks over there that can really help you learn how to play your guitar faster like printable guitar guides customizable backing tracks I'll let my patrons vote on what songs they want to see here on my channel and lots of other exclusive perks by becoming a patron so if you're looking for a way to support this channel to help me make more videos like this one as well as get your hands on some really Nifty perks then make sure to check out my patreon page I'll make sure to link it in the description box down below as well as in this icard right up here alright guys so this picking pattern or tab is going to be super optional but I do think it sounds really pretty with the intro of the song so first of all if you don't know how to read the tabs that you're seeing on the top of the screen make sure to check out this video I did make a fun little video on how to read guitar tabs so go ahead and watch that first and then once you have the basics down you can come back and learn this with me but basically this is going to be a super simple tab all you want to do is on your left hand go ahead and form your chord shape so let's go ahead and start with our c chord so you're just holding that down on your left hand and on your right hand what I want you to do is basically we're going to think of this as like a strum but instead of strumming it all at once you're just gonna pick the individual strings all right and so for each of these chords we're just going to pick the top four strings so in C we have a d g e and this one we're skipping that low E because that's not part of the C chord g we have e a d g so remember on your left hand it's just a G chord shape but instead of strumming you're just picking the first four strings all right same with our E minor foreign for your D chord you only have those four strings anyway so you're just gonna pick d g b e all right so in context of the song it sounds like this let me see the sun here on the a chord on anyway this is going to be a little bit different so first we're going to start it just like with the other tabs we're gonna go a d g b string but then once you're on that b string you want to come back and do the G string again and then the D string all right so we're picking down down down and then come back and pick up up all right so again in context with this song and you found me anyway it's been forever but all right you just go down and then up and then you just start it all over again all right super simple I think it sounds really good with that intro chorus that he starts the song off with and then once you do the intro you would just go into that strumming that we practiced hide and seek I am somewhere closed away okay um so basically like I said at the beginning this whole thing is totally optional but I do think it sounds really good with the intro and kind of pulls the song together so feel free to add that into your cover if you like so go ahead and pause this video and make sure to practice this tab as long as you need to until you kind of have it memorized and then when you get back we can put all of this together to play through the song can you pull the curtains let me see the sunshine I think I'm done with my Hiding Place and you found me anyway it's been forever but um Do You Want to Have Fun jamming through the rest of this song with me then 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 in the description box down below if you enjoyed learning this song you should definitely check out this video not only does it have a super similar Vibe but it's just as fun and easy to play so I'll see you over there bye