Driver's License by Olivia Rodrigo Tutorial/Lesson
Driver's License
G, Em, C, D, Bm7
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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 driver's license by olivia rodrigo on the guitar so stay tuned if this is something you want to learn and guys before we jump into the tutorial i did want to give a huge thank you to today's sponsor black mountain pigs are thumb picks that use an innovative spring design to hold the pick securely to your thumb i've loved using these recently because not only are they super comfortable affordable and durable but they don't slide or flip around on your thumb like other thumb picks i've used in the past these picks fit multiple playing styles and are perfect for when you want to alternate between picking and strumming with ease that makes them great for beginners and professionals alike no matter what stage you're at in your guitar journey best of all you'll get fast shipping and awesome customer service with every purchase so if you're interested in trying these out for yourself make sure to check out the link in my description and never lose another pic while playing your guitar again alright guys so this song is pretty beginner friendly especially if you don't want to do those picking patterns but let's go ahead and jump into an overview of what i'll be showing you in this tutorial so to play this song in the original key you do want to make sure your guitar is in standard tuning and go ahead and put your capo on the third fret if you don't have a capo you can follow this tutorial through the same way it'll just be a little bit lower than the original key in addition to that you only need to know five chords to play through the entire song and none of them are barre chords and i have two strumming patterns that i wanted to show you that you can interchange between as well as two picking patterns that i think sound really good with this song so let's go ahead and jump into the start of this tutorial and look at those chords i drove through the suburbs and pictured i was driving all right guys so let's go ahead and go over the five chords you need to know for this song like i said none of them are barre chords so that's really great the first chord we're going to need to know is g which looks like this and sounds like this after that we've got our e minor chord which looks like this and sounds like this the next chord is c which looks like this and sounds like this then we have our d chord which looks like this and sounds like this and then the last chord you need to know is b minor 7 which looks like this and sounds like this and those are the only five chords you need to know for this song all right so once you have those chords memorized go ahead and take a few minutes to practice transitioning between them most of this song does transition between g e minor and c so if you can do those transitions then that's great however it will be a lot easier for the picking patterns later on if you take some time to transition between these chords now so go ahead and take a few moments to do that and then when you come back i'll go over some strumming patterns that you can use with this song all right guys so the very first strumming pattern is so super simple all you want to do is one down strum on the beat for every chord change and i think this sounds really good with the chorus but let's go ahead and just go through what that would sound like we've got our g chord on since that's the first chord in the song and you're just going to strum it down once then you go to your next chord e minor then we have c then we go back to g and this is a really great practice pattern as well to kind of get you used to the song and singing and playing at the same time so if that is something that you're struggling with i would go ahead and suggest to start with this pattern and just go through the whole song one time through however the only place that i really like to use this is the end of the choruses where the chord progressions go a little bit faster so um let me just show you that really quick at the end of the chorus she says guess you didn't mean what you wrote in that song about me because you said forever now i drive alone past your street so that's kind of where i would use this one downstream pattern guess you didn't mean what you wrote in that song about me cause you said forever now i drive alone past your street all right so i think it fits in really well with the song right there and that is the one place that i like to use it in my cover so if you're following along with the way that i would play it that's where i would put that strumming pattern but let's go ahead and jump into the second strumming pattern i want to show you all right guys and the second strumming pattern is not that much harder than the first as you can see it's just down down down up and you're going to play this about two times through for each cord and the place that i like to use this is during the bridge however you could apply it for the whole song if you wanted to so let's go ahead and jump into the rhythm of how to play this so basically um if you put your g chord on since that's the first chord in the song we're just going to strum down down down up all right so one more time down down and that's kind of the rhythm we want to go to but again we want to repeat this for each chord so we would go down down down up twice down all right now if you do want to use this for the entire song you would need to repeat it about four times if you're doing it for the verses so let me just go ahead and show you what that would sound like i've got my g chord on we're going down down up down down down but today i drove through the suburbs all right so you'll see there we repeated it four times through for every chord if you're gonna do it for the verses however like i said i only like to use this during the bridge so let me go ahead and show you what that would sound like we've got our e minor chord on because that's the first chord in the bridge and it's the same pattern down down up down i still see your face front guards can't drive past the places all right so you can see how that strumming pattern fits in really nicely with the bridge so that is where i like to do it in my cover but again if you wanted to you could do that strumming pattern for the whole song but with that being said let's go ahead and zoom in and i can show you some of these picking patterns that i like to use all right guys so i've zoomed in a little bit so we can get a closer look at these picking patterns before we start i just do want to point this out that i like to refer to my strings as numbers so if you're not familiar with any of my other tutorials i do like to you know call out these strings by numbers so you can see it starts out with six five four three two one all the way to the bottom so that's low e a d g b high e so um just so you know like that's what i'll be referring to these strings as for this picking portion of this tutorial but with that being said let's go ahead and jump into it so this first picking pattern i wanted to show you is kind of the main picking pattern i like to use it for most of the verses and so what i want you to do is we're just going to go through each of these chords so starting with our g chord you want to just put your g chord on your left hand we're going to be focusing our thumb on the base note which is going to be our sixth string and then i want you to take your pointer and your middle finger and put that on the third and second string all right so all together we have six three and two all right and the way we're going to do this picking pattern is you're only going to pick your thumb once and you want to kind of let that ring and while you're letting that ring you want to pump your third and second strings all right so you're going to pick all three at the same time let the thumb ring while you continue to pick the third and second string all right just like that and you're gonna pick the third and second string together 16 times all right and you know you don't really have to count it out if you can feel the rhythm of the music it kind of will come naturally to you but the main thing that you want to remember for this picking pattern is to let that thumb ring all right you want to let that ring while you pick the others so for g we've got 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16. all right and this pattern is the same for the rest of them so let's go ahead and go into our e minor chord it's going to be the same thing your right hand is going to be on the same string six three and two and the pattern is the same you want to play you want to pick all three at the same time but let the bottom ring while you continue to pick these other two okay and we're gonna do that 16 times one two three four five six seven eight nine 10 11 12 13 14 15 16. all right then our last little chord for this picking pattern would be our c chord and for here you want to move your thumb on your right hand to the fifth string because that's the base note in the c right but your pointer and your middle finger are still on the third and second all right and again this pattern is the same you want to let play all three and let the thumb ring while you go back and pick these top two all right and again we're doing that 16 times one two three four five six 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16. and like i said earlier you don't really need to count this out it is very intuitive once you play it with the song so let me go ahead and show you how i would use this picking pattern um i like to use this picking pattern like i said in the verses so let me go ahead and just show you what that sounds like at the beginning g i got my driver's license last week just like we always talked uh then we go to e minor about cause you were so excited for me to finally drive up to your then we go to our c chord switch that thumb to the fifth string house but today i drove through the suburbs crying cause you earner and then go back to g round four five six seven eight and something to mention if you are going to do this during the verses is it goes from g to e minor to c and all three of those chords are going to do 16 of these you know double picks um but then when you go to the end of the verse and you go back to that g chord you're only gonna do it eight times one two three four five six seven eight then the whole thing repeats and you're probably with that blonde girl 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 e minor 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 c 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 and then again g is only eight one two three four five six seven eight all right so basically that is the picking pattern that i like to use for all of the verses i think it sounds really close to the original and it's really easy to play so um that is the first picking pattern so with that being said i do want to kind of show you something really cool that's kind of fun to do if you guys are familiar with the song with the beginning of the music video it kind of starts out with that like car alarm thing so if you have your g cord on you can notice your ring fingers on this top e string all you want to do is take your ring finger on your playing hand on your right hand and you just want to pick that all right and it kind of gives that same feeling in the music video and i just think it's kind of fun to put in there so you would do this six times one two three four five six and then you want to double the speed one two three four and then you jump into the picking pattern all right and so again that's totally optional i just think it sounds really cool so let me just go ahead and show you the very beginning again with that little extra part in there so you'd go one two three four one two one two three four g two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve 13 14 15 16 e minor you were so excited for me to finally drive up to your house but today i drove through the suburbs six seven eight repeat and you were probably with that blonde girl who always made me doubt e minor she's so much older than me she's everything i'm insecure about yet today i drove through the suburbs sorry i'm a little unfamiliar with this part of the song and then g two three four five six seven eight and from there we would jump into the second strumming pattern or second picking pattern that i wanted to show you so let's go ahead and go over the second picking pattern so like i said i like to use that first picking pattern for the verses but for the choruses i like to actually switch it up and go to another one so um what i want you to do for this picking pattern is our thumb is going to cover the bottom three strings e a and d or six five and four okay but your pointer finger and your middle finger on your right playing hand those are still gonna stay on the third and second strings okay so they're never gonna move from three and two regardless of the picking pattern and your thumb is going to kind of pump back and forth between the bass notes so with that being said let's go ahead and go over each chord so the first chord in our chorus is the c chord the bass note of that is our fifth string all right so what i want you to do is put your thumb on the fifth and your pointer on the third and your middle finger on the second and we're gonna go five three two three then four three two three so we're kind of going back and forth on that base note five three two three four three two three all right and remember your thumb is always covering these bottom three strings and your pointer and middle finger are never moving from the third and second string so again for c we've got five three two three four three two three all right then the next chord in the um chorus is our g chord and for this you wanna move your fifth uh your thumb back to the sixth string because that's the bass note all right but again your pointer and middle finger are staying on three and two so for this we've got six three two three four three two three so you can see the majority of this picking pattern is the same for the c and the g chord the only thing that's changing is the very first note which is going to be that bass note and for the chorus that's the only like those are the only two chords that i use this picking pattern on so let's go ahead and go through both of those again for c we've got five three two three four three two three then g we've got six three two three four three two three all right all right and like i said the c and the g chord are the only chords that i really use this picking pattern on because we're just doing it for the beginning of the chorus and so what you want to do is you want to repeat this through two times for the c chord but only play it one time for the g so let's go ahead and go over that with our c chord on we've got five three two three four three two three again switch to g once then go back to c twice then g and you only do g one time so let me go ahead and put some singing in there so you can kind of hear what it sounds like in context with the chorus and just so you guys know this song is extremely high for me so i'm apologize for singing ahead of time but okay let's go ahead and go through that c chord we've got five three two three four three two three twice i know we weren't perfect but i never felt this way for no g once go back to c i just can't imagine how you could be so okay now that i'm gone all right and that's the only place i use this picking pattern because after that i go into that first strumming pattern guess you didn't mean what you wrote in that song about all right so basically that is the second picking pattern and again i like to only use that during the beginning of the choruses and so those are the picking patterns i wanted to show you guys i think that when we put all of it together it does sound really good with the original song so let's go ahead and zoom back out so we can do the play through and play through the song together and you're probably with that blonde girl who always made me doubt she's so much older than me she's all right guys so once you have all of those cords memorized and you've got those strumming patterns down you've taken a swing at those picking patterns if you wanted to let's go ahead and put all of that together so we can play through the whole song this is going to be driver's license by olivia rodrigo good luck got my driver's license last week just like we always talked about cause you were so excited for me to finally drive up to your house but today i drove through the suburbs crying cause you weren't around and you're probably with that blonde girl who always made me doubt she's so much older than me she's everything i'm insecure about yet today i drove through the suburbs cause how could i ever love someone else and i just can't imagine how you could be so okay now that i'm gone cause you didn't read what you wrote in that song about me cause you said forever now i drive alone past your street and all my friends are tired of hearing how much i miss you but i kind of feel sorry for them cause they'll never know you the way that i do yet today i drove through the suburbs and pictured i was driving home to you and i know we weren't perfect but i've never felt this way for no one and i just can't imagine how you could be so okay now that i'm gone guess you didn't mean what you wrote in that song about me cause you said forever now i drive alone past your stream red light stop sighs we used in the traffic all the noises i know we weren't perfect but i've never felt this way for no one i just can't imagine how you could be so okay now that i'm gone cause you didn't mean what you wrote in that song about me cause you said forever now i drive alone past your street yeah you sat forever now i drive alone past your street alright guys so that was my tutorial for how to play driver's license by olivia rodrigo on the guitar if you liked this video and found it helpful 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 any other new tutorials if you're feeling generous you can also leave a comment while you're down there because that does help my channel get recognized in the youtube algorithm to get these free tutorials out to more people 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 things you want to see and i also do fun giveaways on there so make sure to check that out if you'd like to another huge thank you to black mountain pigs for sponsoring this video and one last little plug if you liked the shirt i was wearing in today's video this is my guitar babe shirt on my slouchy tee which you can find 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 tutorials for you guys so thank you so much for watching i really hope this helped and i will see you in my next one bye you