Eyes Closed by Ed Sheeran Tutorial/Lesson
Eyes Closed
C, Gsus4, Am, F/C
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Video transcript
foreign my name is Ellen and today I'm going to be showing you guys how to play eyes closed by Ed Sheeran on the guitar here's a quick overview of everything that I'll be teaching in this tutorial today and with that being said let's go ahead and get started alright guys so you only need to know four different chord shapes to play through this song and we're going to 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 in my free beginner course right here on YouTube so make sure to check that out the next chord is our G suspended four so you just want to take your ring and your middle finger and move those up one string each after that we have our a minor chord again just your middle finger and your ring finger have to move and then the last chord shape you need to know is your F over C foreign 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 really memorize those chord Shades as well as practice transitioning back and forth between them because it will make learning the rest of the song so much easier and if transitioning between your chords 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 patterns for this song Alright guys so like I always say if you are brand new to the guitar or you struggle with singing and playing at the same time the first thing I would suggest is a practice pattern where you bring up the song and you just do a single down strum for every chord change as you sing through the song and this is really going to just help you get used to where those chord changes are going to occur throughout the song and gives you a chance to practice it with a simple single down strum so here's a quick example of what that would look like I know it's a bad idea but how can I help myself get inside for most this year and I thought a few drinks they might have all right so you basically want to just do that for the entire song and just really know where you're going to be changing those chords and there's actually something you can do right now if you check out my patreon page I do have this whole guide available to download and print out so I'll make sure to leave that link in the description box down below as well as in this I card right up here but with that being said let's go ahead and talk about a little bit more of a full strumming pattern alright guys so for strumming for this song I do have two suggestions for you and you can either choose your favorite one or use both throughout the song but let's go ahead and talk about strumming pattern one as you can see it's a little bit of a long one it's down up up down down up so let's go ahead and zoom in and talk a little bit more about this for them all right guys so we are going to be in a 16th note Rhythm for both of the strumming patterns I have to show you today so if you don't know what that is or how to count that make sure to check out my free beginner course right here on YouTube because I Do cover that there but anyways let's go ahead and talk about how you count this so we're going to go like this we have one E and A two e and a three e and a four E and A one E and A two e and a three e and a four E and A down up up down up up down down up down up up down up up down up all right so definitely give yourself some time to get used to that strumming pattern especially if you're new to the 16th note strumming patterns but basically all you want to do is play this whole pattern one time through per chord and you can actually use this for the entire song so let's go ahead and add some chords into it this whole song is gonna go from C to G suspended four to a minor to F over C so the chord order is not too hard now we just want to make sure to put the strumming pattern within so on our c chord we have down up up down up up down down up G suspended down up up down up up down up down so when you speed that up a little bit you can hear how the song comes together one time through for each core and you can apply these for the whole small I love you all right again you could do this with the pre-chorus as well again you can do it for the course as well just dance thank you all right one quick little note about this first strumming option is that I actually like to use this mostly during the verses and the pre-choruses and when I do that I like to add in a palm mute so basically all I'm doing is I'm taking my strumming hand and laying it really so gently on my bridge here so when I play my chords instead of having them ring out like normal they're just going to sound a little more muted all right you don't want them to sound dead like this but you definitely want to have them sound just a little more dampened so if you apply that to the down strums of your palm muting it'll sound more like this so you can kind of hear how it's just a little bit more um bouncy a little bit I feel like it fits the song's personality a little bit more um if you need more help with palm muting specifically I did make a video so I'll link that in the description box down below but basically if you want to apply a palm mute that's how I like to play it in my cover but again like I said this first strumming pattern is just the first option so let's go ahead and talk about a second strumming pattern that you can use all right so like I said earlier I do have two strumming options for you so if you don't like the first one you can actually use the second one as well and as you can see it's down down down up up down down down up so let's go ahead and zoom in and talk a little bit more about this Rhythm alright guys so just like with the first option this is going to be another 16th note Rhythm so this time we're going to count it like this we have one E and A two e and a three e and a four E and A one E and A two e and a three e and a four e and some down down up up down down down down up up all right so again this is going to feel a little bit more um you know complex than your average eighth note strumming Rhythm but I do think it sounds really good with this song so basically just like with the first option you are going to just play this pattern one time through per chord and you can use it throughout the whole song so again we have our c chord we've got down down up down down up to G suspended up all right and you can use this for the entire song you just want to kind of speed it up a little bit and then string those chords together so that would sound like this we have C and then minor F over C I know but how can I help myself all right again pre-chorus could be applied here too and then again with the chorus it works there as well dancing with my eyes all right so I understand that both of these strumming patterns can be a little bit more complex than you might be used to so just make sure to take your time and practice this as much as you need to the great thing about this song is that those chords are always going to be in the same order so whichever strumming pattern you choose you can just apply it that one time through for each chord throughout the entire song and it sounds really good so again guys just pause the video and take as much time as you need to practice these strumming rhythms I would say that they're more of an intermediate level when it comes to being able to count them and you know get them down while also singing so it is going to take a lot of time and practice especially the newer you are to guitar but I totally think you can do it and it sounds really great and remember that these are just two options that I've provided for you if you like one over the other then definitely go with that one or if your body starts to naturally do its own strumming pattern I think that's great as well so you can always just make up your own strumming pattern as long as you're keeping that beat of the song going and that should go with the song as well um but basically that's how you could play through this whole song with the strumming there is one last thing I wanted to show you guys which is that kind of like riff um like tab kind of picking portion that you can hear throughout the beginning and actually throughout the entire song as well so let's go ahead and jump into how to do that Tab and really quick guys before we move on I just wanted to take a second to say thank you so much for watching if you are enjoying this video and finding it helpful please make sure to give me a thumbs up down below as well subscribe to my channel because it really does help me out a lot and if you're somebody who's been struggling with anything that we've talked about so far maybe the chord shapes The rhythms the strumming things like that you can always check out my patreon page where I offer exclusive perks to my patrons including things like printable guitar guides customizable backing tracks voting polls for what kind of songs you want to see here on my channel and you can even send me videos of whatever you're practicing and ask me any questions you have and I will send you a video response back so those are just a handful of the perks that I offer my patrons so if you're at all interested in getting your hands on some of these exclusive while simultaneously supporting my channel make sure to check it out I will link it in the description box down below alright guys so let's go ahead and Tackle this little riff that we hear throughout the song it's actually really super easy to play so basically we're gonna put our c chord down on our left hand but really if you only want to hold down the two notes that you need you don't have to hold down your middle finger but you could just do the whole chord shape like that I think is easier and basically all you want to do is take your pick and pick the a string or the low bass string one time on a down pick then you want to come here to your B string and pick up like that so you can hear that octave there so we have then you want to come back do this two times and then back to the B string and that's the first chord the C there so we have super simple then for your juice suspended cord you can either on your left hand go to the full cord shape but what I actually like to do is just take off my ring finger and move my middle finger up one string and so now we're going to do the same two strings we have our a string down pick up pick on a b string and then twice just like that so it's just like the C chord and then for our a minor again on your left hand you could do the whole chord shape if you want all I like to do is just take off my middle finger and so again same strings just like that or open one open one and then the last chord here it's gonna kind of be an F chord if you wanted to do like a chord shape but you really don't need to make that chord shape what I actually like to do is our first finger has been on this first fret of the B string this whole time so I don't move that I actually take my thumb here and I wrap it around the neck of my guitar to hold down the first fret of my low E string okay and so if you do that we have this note all right and then again B string on an up pig down down up all right so the whole riff tab is like this foreign and hopefully you can kind of hear how that fits into the song This I think repeats itself basically through the entire song so if you have like a friend to play with one of you guys could play this while the other one does strumming or if you like the way this sounds you could totally pair it with the singing and just kind of sing through the song while only doing the little riff tab here but basically that's the whole tab it's super simple and you can apply it throughout the whole song so go ahead and pause the video and just make sure to take some time to look this over and really get it under your belt and then once you come back we can put together everything we've learned in the video to play through the song one two ready go I know it's a bad idea but how can I help myself been inside for most this year and I thought a few drinks they might hope it's been a while my dear dealing with the cards life dealt I'm still holding back these tears all my friends are somewhere else Wanna Have Fun jamming through the rest of the 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 like learning this song with me then you should definitely check out this video not only does it have a super similar Vibe but it's just as easy and fun to play so I'll see you later bye