Happy Together by The Turtles Tutorial/Lesson
Happy Together
Em, D, C, B7, E, Bm, G, 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 Happy Together by the Turtles on the guitar. Today I am featuring my Journey Instruments OF420 guitar, which is one of the coolest guitars I own because it is a collapsible and it actually folds in half so you can bring it with you anywhere. If you're interested in this model or any of their other travel guitars, I will make sure to link them in the description box down below. Here's a quick overview of everything I'll be covering in this tutorial today. And with that being said, let's go ahead and get started. All right, guys. So, you need to know eight different chord shapes to play through this song. And we're going to start with our E minor, which looks like [music] 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 series right here on YouTube. So, make sure to check that out right here. The next chord shape is our D major. We also have our C major. >> [music] >> There's our B7. We also have our E major. Next is our B minor, which is our bar chord. We also have G major. And then the last chord shape is our B minor 7. [music] And those are the chords you need to know to play through this song. So go ahead and pause the video and take as much time as you need to really memorize these chord shapes, as well as practice transitioning back and forth between them, cuz it'll make learning the rest of the song so much easier for you. Um, but once you have these chords under your belt, we can go ahead and talk about the strumming that I would suggest for this song. All right guys, so for today's strumming pattern, we are going to be counting this in a triplet rhythm. So, if you don't know what that means, basically there's going to be four beats within a measure. And within each of those four beats, we're going to have three sub beats. Okay? So, it's going to be counted like this. We have one and a two and a three and a four and a one and a two and a three and a four and a one 2 3 4 a down up. All right. On the surface, this looks like a super simple strumming pattern, but you do want to make sure you have that triplet rhythm kind of internalized because that's what's going to give this song more of that kind of bouncier feel that you hear in the original song. Okay, but basically this pattern you can use to play through the entire song if you like. What we're going to do is play this two times per chord throughout the verses. So, let me go ahead and pull up verse one to show you. Here we're starting here in our E minor. You would just play this pattern through twice. So, we have 1 and a two and a [music] three and a four and a twice. >> [music] >> to your D chord. Same thing. Down, [singing and music] down, down, up to C. And on your B7. All right. And that's basically how you can use the strumming rhythm to play through the entire song. Now, what I want to show you guys here is something that I like to do during these verses. You can hear in the song it's a little more quiet, a little more mellow during these parts. So, what I'll do is I'll add a palm mute. So, basically what a palm mute is is I'm taking the side of my hand that has my pick in it and the side of my palm here. I'm kind of gently resting that on the strings of my guitar right back here where the bridge of my guitar is. So, your hands scooted pretty far back. If you gently lay the side of your hand there as you strum, you should hear how it gives more of a dampened kind of muted sound. So that's adding a palm mute. So if you can, I would add a palm mute to all of these downstrums in this pattern. So we have down down [singing and music] up. The upstrum you can still let ring like normal. Okay. So if you apply this palm mute, it does kind of quiet the whole thing down a little. >> [music] >> All right. Um, it's totally optional. If you can't do the palm mute or you don't like the way that sounds, you can just, you know, let it ring out like normal. But I would suggest using this pattern for all of the verses. So, let me go ahead and speed it up just a little. add some singing in there so you can hear how it all comes together. So we've got 1 2 ready go. E minor down down [music] to C [music] twice for each of these chords. E7. And that's the verses. Imagine me and you. I do. I think about you day and night. It's only right to think about the [music] girl you love [singing] and hold her tight so happy together. All right, so that's how you can play through the verses. If you wanted, you could carry this strumming pattern into the choruses as well. Um, but something I like to do for the chorus is kind of change it up a little bit to make different parts of the song sound a little more distinct. So, for that, I wanted to teach you actually a second strumming pattern. So, let's go ahead and talk about strumming pattern two. All right, guys. Okay, so for the second strumming pattern, we are still going to be in a triplet rhythm. So again, there's three sub beatats per beat. And our rhythm is now going to sound like this. We have one and a two and a three and a four and a one and a two and a three and a four and a one two a four a down up down up. All right, this looks super similar to our regular eighth note pattern. We'll use this pattern a lot, but because of that triplet rhythm, it does kind of give it more of a bouncy feel. So just keep that in mind. But basically what we would do for this in the chorus is we'll play through this pattern one time through per chord. So let's go ahead and look at the chorus there. We're starting on our E major chord. We'll play it one time. So we have down up down up [music] to your B minor. Down [singing] up down up back to E to G. [music] All right. And this is the strumming rhythm I would recommend changing into for those choruses. So we've got down, down, up, up, down, [singing and music] up, minor, G. [music] I [singing] can't All [music] my [singing] love. All right. So, this second strumming pattern is totally optional, but I do think it sounds really good and kind of fills in some of that space for the chorus wherever it gets louder. And the last thing I wanted to show you guys is when you go from one section to the next section in the song, I like to switch to an all down and up strum like this. Down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, All right. So again, still staying in that triplet rhythm, but we're just filling in all of these beats now. 1 and 2 [music and singing] and 3 and four and. Okay. And I'll do that on just the very last chord from every verse going into a chorus or every chorus going back into a verse. So let's go ahead and take a look at verse one here. At the end on this B7 chord, this is where I would do the full pattern. Down, up, [singing] down, up, down, up, down, up. [music] And that'll lead into the chorus. So basically, every time we're switching from strumming pattern one into strumming pattern two, I would just do this full pattern. Okay? So let me go ahead and start here at the end of verse one and show you how it goes all into each other. Remember for verse one, we're sticking with our first strumming pattern together. [singing] Second time down, up, down, up, down, up, [music] down, up, down, up into the chorus. I can't. [singing and music] All right. So you can see how we switched from our first strumming pattern into our second strumming pattern via the all down and upstrum pattern. Okay. Um and again you can take that from the chorus into the verse as well. So let's go ahead and take a look at the end of the chorus into verse two. [music] [singing] You're all my [music] life. Back to strumming pattern one. Me and you [music] and you and me. All right. So, I would recommend if you can do that full out pattern, do that between every verse and chorus leading into one another. And that'll really tie the song together well and just make it sound a lot like the original song. Um, but basically, those are the two strumming rhythms that I wanted to show you to play through the song. All right, guys. So, again, go ahead and pause the video and take as much time as you need to really look over these strumming rhythms and get used to them. That triplet pattern can be a little bit nuanced and a little hard for beginners to kind of grasp. So, if you're just [music] finding yourself naturally kind of hearing it, definitely just go with what your body is feeling. Um, but if you wanted to understand how to count it, you know, rhythmically, just make sure to have those three sub [music] beats per beat whenever you play through this song. Um, but once you have these strumming rhythms under your belt, we can go ahead and put everything we've learned in this tutorial together, the chords, transitions, strumming, put it together to play through the song. One, [music] two, ready, go. Me and you. [singing and music] I do. I think about you day and night. It's only right [music] to think about [singing] the girl you love and hope that I so happy [music] together. >> Want to have fun jamming up after 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 for that in the description box down below. If you enjoyed learning this song with me, then you should definitely [music] check out this video. Not only does it have a super similar vibe and feel, but it's just as fun and easy to play. So, I'll see you over there.