Flowers by Miley Cyrus Tutorial/Lesson
Flowers
Cmaj7, Am, Dm, G, C, E7, C/B, F
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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 Flowers by Miley Cyrus on the guitar so stay tuned to this is something that you'd like to learn but really quick before we jump into the tutorial I wanted to take a second to thank today's sponsor and new music I'll actually be featuring their Nova Go acoustic Plus in sparkling pink today so if you like what you see make sure to check out the link in the description box down below alright guys so I'm going to go ahead and label this a beginner friendly song with the exception of one bar chord but don't worry I will teach you guys a kind of cheater way to play that so you don't have to Bar any chords but first of all let's go ahead and talk about our guitar you will need it to be in standard tuning and we do not need a capo to play this song in its original key on top of that I have eight chords to show you to play through the song like I said one of them is a bar chord which is f but I will also show you an alternate version of playing that so you don't have to Bar any chords and then after that I'm going to show you two different strumming patterns that you can utilize to play through the entire song and that'll be it so let's go ahead and jump into the tutorial and we'll start with the chords alright guys so I've zoomed in a little to take a closer look at these chords we're going to start with our C Major seven which looks like this and sounds like this foreign and by the way if you don't know how to read these chord charts that you're seeing on screen I Do cover how to do that in my beginner series episode three so I'll make sure to link that video right here for those of you who need it our next chord is our a minor chord after that we have our D minor chord next is our G chord after that we have C next is our E7 chord foreign then we have our C over B chord and then the last chord we have is our bar chord which is f as promised if bar chords are hard for you instead of this barred version of f you can actually replace it with an F over C and that will work anytime you see the F chord throughout this song So as I always say if you're new to playing the guitar go ahead and pause the video and just take a few minutes to memorize these new chord shapes as well as practice transitioning back and forth between them it will make learning the rest of the song so much easier but once you've done that we can go ahead and talk about the strumming patterns I would suggest for this song you can so if you're struggling with singing while playing or just new to guitar in general I would recommend starting out with a practice pattern which as you can see is just a single down strum for every chord change this is going to be really great for those of you who want to get into singing and playing guitar at the same time basically all you want to do is place the song sing all the words and you're just going to do a single down strum every time you see a chord change so let's go ahead and bring up part of the song as an example so I have the chorus pulled up right now and basically all you want to do is sing through the whole song and just do a single down strum every time you see a chord change I can buy myself flowers write my name in the sand all right and basically you would want to do that for the entire song and really make a mental note of what word you're singing or what syllable you're on whenever those transitions are happening and that'll make learning the song and putting together both the singing and the strumming much easier and this is actually something you do right now I do this whole guide available on my patreon page for you to download and print out so you can practice through this but once you get used to how the chords and everything go together then we can go ahead and talk about strumming pattern one so if you're at all familiar with my channel you might recognize strumming pattern one and as you can see it's just eight down strands and it's gonna sound like this foreign straightforward Rhythm it's just going to be all down strands on the eighth notes so one and two and three and four and but what we want to do is I'm going to go ahead and underline some of these down strums and this is going to represent where we're going to Accent certain beats and all I mean by that is when you strum down you're just strumming a little bit harder than the rest of them and what this is going to do is it's going to build kind of a pulsating kind of strumming so we have one and two and three and four and when you pair this with these cords you'll hear how it kind of drives the song forward a little bit more so let's go ahead and add a chord to this so we can hear how it comes together so let's just use our a minor chord what you want to do is play on the eighth notes one and two and three and four and we're doing all down strums here but remember to Accent the ones that are underlined so we have one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and all right so all you want to do before you pair it with some singing is to speed it up because we are going a little bit under tempo right now so at full Tempo it would sound more like this one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and all down strum don't forget your accents all right so again once you put those chord transitions in there you're playing through this pattern one time for each of those chords so we have a minor G C all right so let's go ahead and bring up verse one because I would recommend using this for the verses as well as the pre-choruses so if you were to pair some singing with that this is what that would sound like we were good we were cool all right so basically if that's where you're at you could actually use this strumming pattern for the whole song but like I said I do think it sounds better with the verses that kind of build up to the choruses um one other thing that I will add in here is if you can what you want to do is maybe add a palm mute so that's just when you're taking the side of your pick hand and you're just very ever so gently resting that on the bridge of your guitar so now when you strum down you can hear it's a little bit more muted a little bit more dampened and what you can do is actually use the Palm mute as well as these accents to give a very cool kind of rhythmic feel so it'd sound more like this foreign if you need more help with this stirring pattern in particular I do go through that in my beginner series as well so make sure to check that out but basically if you apply this with the Palm mute it sounds really great with all of the verses and the pre-courses throughout the song we were good we were fooled kind of a dream that can't be sold we were right till we were built a home and watched it burn like I said it sounds good with the pre-chorus as well so let's go ahead and hear how that sounds I didn't want to leave all right so again I think that this is the best kind of strumming pattern that you can use for the verses in the pre-courses but feel free to make up your own the last thing here is that there are going to be times in these verses where you're going to be changing the chords in the middle of this pattern so let's go ahead and bring that back up we have our eight down strums sometimes you're going to have to change chords in the middle so after the third down strum I'm going to kind of add a vertical line and this just shows where you're going to be transitioning some of those chords so for example in verse two we have a minor this gets the full pattern one two three four five six seven eight then we have D Minor one two three four five six seven eight then we have G one two three four five six seven eight then here we go from C to C Major seven and this is an example of one of those split patterns so I want to do is play the C on the first three down strums one two three and then you want to go to your next chord C Major seven and finish out that pattern four five six seven eight and that's going to apply anytime you see those split patterns that's where it's gonna split is just right after the third down strum so an example of verse two with that split pattern would sound like this paint my nails cherry red match the Roses two three one two three four five all right so that's how that split works and again you could use this for the entire song however I do think that the chorus is very um beat heavy and I have a strumming pattern that kind of matches that so let's go ahead and talk about strumming pattern too Alright guys so for the second strumming pattern we have another eighth note pattern and as you can see it's just down down up down up down up and the whole thing's gonna sound like this foreign now again before we get any further I'm going to underline some of these down strums again and just like before that's going to represent what we're accenting notes or just kind of strumming with a little bit more Force to give it a little more oomph behind our strum so if you do that with every down strum it's really going to Echo that kind of beat that this song has when she's like stomping around in the music video so you have down down up down up down up all right so if you can try to add those Accents in I think it sounds a lot more you know driving like that but basically let's go ahead and just break down this pattern a little bit more so let's put our a minor chord down what you want to do is hold out the first down strum and then you're just going to go back and forth down up down up one two and three and four and all right that's the whole pattern and just like with before we're just gonna play this pattern through one time for each chord so we have a minor down up down up down up D Minor down up down up down up G C right so let's go ahead and bring up the chorus so you can kind of hear how this sounds together remember we have down up down up down up D minor see I can buy myself flowers all right and you might notice here at the end of this line we have our C to our C over B chord and this is going to be another example like we talked about earlier about how you're going to split this pattern in half for some of these chord progressions or chord transitions so in that example we have a c to C over B and where we're going to split this pattern now is going to be after that first down up okay so we have down down up then you want to finish the rest of the pattern on your next chord in this case C over B down up down up all right so again this doesn't apply throughout the song just whenever we have those quicker chord transitions right so you can kind of hear the Rhythm is not changing at all we're just transitioning chords um in the middle so now with that split transition this is what the chorus would sound like all right and like I said this pattern I think is going to be really good for any of those choruses the post chorus the outro things like that where it's kind of like really drum heavy so the other thing that I wanted to show you guys that you can do optional but I think it sounds really cool is we're going to in addition to these accented down strums we're going to mute the up strums but we're not muting it with our right hand like we did earlier with that Palm mute we're actually going to meet it with our left hand so let me go ahead and show you how to do that all right guys so for this technique basically all you want to do is whenever you're fretting a chord let's just say our a minor for example whenever you are fretting a chord you have to press down hard enough so that the string touches the fret wire in front of it and that's what makes those sounds but what you can do with your left hand is if you lift off like so don't actually lift your fingers off the strings but if you kind of release some of that pressure so that you're not pressing down enough for the strings to touch the fret wire that mutes any of these strings that your finger is fretting so for a minor with it muted on my left hand it would sound more like this all right so you can notice all three of those inside notes were muted because my fingers are not pressing down hard enough and so basically what that does is when you're strumming what you want to do is go back and forth between having enough pressure and then lifting up on that pressure so on your down strums you're going to just fret your cords like normal but then on your up strums you're going to kind of release pressure and it'll have more of a almost like a chucking kind of muted sound and if you do this together it sounds really cool because you have did you hear how the down strums now are even more they sound even more accented because I'm muting the obstrongs all right so if you do that for the entire song I think again this really makes it sound a little bit more beat heavy with which is how the original song sounds so we have a minor thank you all right so I think this is something that sounds really cool reminiscent of this song but again it's totally optional in my playthrough I will be using the left hand muting technique so just to let you know that's how I do that alright guys so although there is no picking pattern for this song at the very beginning there is something really cool you can do so go ahead and put your C Major seven chord on and instead of just strumming that for the beginning of the song what you could do is play with your pick the bass note which is your fifth string your a string and then your bottom three strings GB but make sure your C Major seven is fretted so it sounds like this five three five through it's like how her song starts so you would go and then go straight into singing and strumming we were good we were bold all right just like that and that's how I would intro the song again that's totally optional as well if you don't want to do the picking you could just strum it down once and then start singing but with all of that covered we can go ahead and put everything we've learned in this tutorial together to play through the song Good Luck no remorse no regrets we were good we were gold we were right till we were just built a home and watched it burn when I have fun playing 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 as well as in this icard right up here alright guys for that ends my video for today thank you so much for watching I really hope that it helped if it did make sure to give me a thumbs up down below as well subscribe to my channel that way you never miss out on any other new guitar tutorials another thank you goes out to Enya music for sponsoring today's video as well as a special shout out to my top patrons over on my patreon page I'll make sure to list all of their names on screen right now and of course a huge thank you goes out to all of my patrons for supporting my channel and making videos just like this when possible you guys are awesome 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 and things I'm working on I'll pull you guys on what you want to learn next I'll even do giveaways on there a few times a year so make sure to check them out but I think that ends the video so thank you so much for watching I really hope that it helped and I will see you in my next one coming out really soon bye thank you