Heat Waves by Glass Animals Tutorial/Lesson
Heat Waves
Am, G, Em, D, C
Download Printable Guitar Guide
Unlock with Patreon
Watch play along cover
Unlock with Patreon
Are you new to playing the guitar? Watch my free Beginner Series where I show you all of the basics. You'll be playing your first songs in minutes!
Video transcript
oh hey everyone my name is ellen and today i'm going to be showing you guys how to play heat waves by glass animals on the guitar so stay tuned if this is something that you'd like to learn all right guys although there are a few aspects of this song that can be a little bit more challenging i would say that it's pretty beginner friendly especially if you want to just stick with the strumming instead of the picking pattern but let's go ahead and go over the overview so go ahead and make sure your guitar is in standard tuning and today i have my capo on the fourth fret this is going to allow us to play the easiest chord shapes possible while also being in the original key as the original song on top of that you're only going to need to know five different chords and none of them are barre chords so no worries there and today i wanted to show you one main strumming pattern that i like to use in this song as well as one picking pattern that kind of emulates what you hear in the original so with that being said let's go ahead and jump into how to play those chords alright so like i said you only need to know five chords to play through this whole song and the first one is a minor which looks like this and sounds like this after that we have our g chord which looks like this and sounds like this next we have our e minor chord 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 our c chord which looks like this and sounds like this and those are the five chords you need to know to play this song all right guys so after you have those chords memorized go ahead and take a few moments to practice transitioning between them this song does go pretty fast especially since you'll see in the strumming portion we're going to be changing our chords in the middle of a strumming pattern so just make sure that you have those transitions down if that's something that you need help with i do have a video right here that talks about how to practice your transitions and get better at them so make sure to check that out if you need help with that but with that being said let's go ahead and jump into the strumming patterns that i like to use for this song all right so if you're familiar with any of my other tutorials you know what's coming first which is our practice pattern which is just one simple down strum on the beat for every chord change i always suggest beginners start like this so that you can get used to where those chord transitions are going to be throughout the song like what word you're singing and things like that and it also just kind of gives you a feel for how the song is going to go so let's go ahead and give this a practice if you put your a minor chord on that's the very first chord in the song and all you're going to do is strum down once go to your next chord g strum down once then we have e minor strum down once and then d strum down once all right so let's go ahead and just apply this to the chorus because that's the most familiar part of this song i'm sure for most of us so again we have our chord progressions on there a minor g e minor d and you're just gonna do one simple down strum while singing the song and just take note of which syllable or which word you're singing whenever you're changing those chords one two three four sometimes all i think about is you late nights in the middle of june all right so again just take note of which word you're singing whenever we're doing those chord transitions it's really going to help you kind of keep that beat going when we up the difficulty of the strumming pattern which is what i'm just about to do so let's go ahead and go over the strumming pattern that i actually like to use in my cover alright so as you can see our strumming pattern is a little bit lengthy but don't worry i'm going to break this down for you guys but first of all let's just go over the rhythm as you can see it's down down up up down down down up and it's going to sound a little something like this all right so hopefully you're starting to hear how the rhythm is coming together now but let's just practice it together i have my a minor chord on since that's the first chord in the song and let's go ahead and just get this strumming pattern's rhythm down and stay on our a minor chord one two three four down down up up down down down down up down down down up up down down down up down up up down down down all right good so i know again it is kind of a lengthy strumming pattern but when we start to change chords you'll see how it kind of comes together a little bit more but make sure that you get that rhythm down if you need more practice go ahead and pause the video and rewind a little bit and practice that section over and over until you can get the rhythm part on bead on tempo with me and then from there we can go ahead and put in some of our chord transitions so let me go ahead and put your chord transitions on the screen we're going to go from a minor to g to e minor to d and the way we're going to kind of break this pattern down is we're going to put one chord on the left side so i'm going to put a little vertical line here after the first two down strums and what we're going to do is play those first two down strums on our first chord and then play the rest of the pattern through on our second chord and that's going to alternate back and forth so for example we're going to have a minor on the first two downs and then the rest of this pattern is going to be played with g so let me just go ahead and show you what that sounds like with my a minor chord on i have down switch to g up up down down down up all right one more time a minor down switch to g all right so you can see that's a really quick transition because we're doing those chord transitions in the middle of the strumming pattern so again make sure that you have your transitions down really quick all right so again we've got a minor down down switch up down down down down all right awesome and again once you have those first two chords down it's going to follow this same pattern for the entire song so our next two chords are going to be e minor to d and like i said earlier it's going to follow the exact same pattern so e minor is going to be on the first two down strums and d is going to be on the rest of the pattern so again with our e minor we've got down then you go to your d chord up up down down down up all right again e minor d all right and again once you put this in context of the song and you get all of your core transitions you know transitioning in the right spot it'll start to sound a lot more like the song so let's go ahead and put all four of those chords together one two three four down do something all right so hopefully you can hear the song starting to come together now and the great thing about this pattern is that even though it can be a little bit tricky to get under your belt and get used to it can be applied for the entire song so you don't have to learn any other strumming patterns to play through this and actually in my cover that is the strumming pattern that i will be using for the entire song however there is a really cool picking pattern that you can use that kind of emulates the song a little bit more so let's go ahead and zoom in so i can show you the picking pattern that i would suggest using for this song i just want to know what you're dreaming of when you sleep and smile so comfortable i just wish that i could give you that fat look that's perfect all right guys so i've zoomed in to take a closer look at this picking pattern now if you are unfamiliar with my other tutorials i do like to refer to my strings as numbers so my low e string is six and it goes five four three two one all the way to my high e string which is one and that just kind of makes more sense in my head so hopefully it does in your head as well so for the rest of this picking portion i will be referring to these strings as numbers so that being said let's go ahead and jump into the actual pattern so if you go ahead and put your a minor chord on that's the first chord in the song what we're going to do with our right picking hand is we're going to use our thumb to pick the lowest like bass note in each chord which in this case is either going to be your sixth string low e or your fifth string the a then i want you to take your pointer and your middle finger and we're going to use these for the other two strings in the pattern per chord so each chord is going to be a little bit different so let me just go ahead and show you one chord at a time with our a minor chord we're going to have our thumb on the fifth string our pointer finger on the third g string and our middle finger on the second b string all right and what we're going to do is pick the bottom or base note which is five then we're going to alternate between our top two strings three and two so we've got five three two three two three all right and it'll make more sense if you put it in the rhythm that you hear in the song then we would go to our g chord next and for this one you're going to keep your pointer and middle finger on the g and b on the three and two but move your thumb to the new bass note which is our sixth string okay so for this it's going to be the same pattern we're going to play our bass and then back and forth between three and two six three two three two three all right so hopefully you're hearing the song from our a minor to g we go five three two three two three to g six three two three all right next we're gonna have our e minor chord and this is where it's gonna change a little bit so your thumb is gonna stay on your low e string but this time i want you to move your pointer and middle finger up one string each so now your pointer finger is on the fourth d string and your middle finger is on the third g string but the actual pattern is going to be the same so for e minor we have six four three four all right so so far we have a minor g e minor then for d which is our last chord in this little pattern here go ahead and keep your thumb on the fifth string i know that that's not actually part of the d chord but it's just easiest to keep your hand in this position so for d chord we're going to pick the fifth string and then four three four all right so the whole thing goes like this a minor g e minor d alright so without stopping all right and if you're playing that for the intro then that would just repeat itself repeat all right now that does repeat throughout the song however if you want to play this picking pattern during the chorus we do need to know a few more chords so let's go ahead and take a look at our c chord for this one your thumb is going to be on the base note which is our fifth a string and then your pointer and your middle are going to go ahead and stay on the fourth and third string or the d and g string all right so our c chord is the same pattern we've got five four three four three four all right and then in the chorus you're actually going to see that you'll play the g chord twice in this little progression so the first time you're playing g chord it's going to be how we practice it earlier so we have 6 3 2 but the second time i would suggest to go ahead and play it this way so you're gonna keep your thumb on sixth but you're going to move your pointer and middle finger to the fourth and third string so the second time you play g it'll look like this six four three four and the reason i'm suggesting it that way is because it just kind of makes it easier on yourself with your picking hand to not have to switch strings too much so let me just go ahead and play you the whole progression so this is again during the chorus we're going to go a minor g e minor d c g e minor d okay that's the whole entire progression and the picking pattern is going to sound like this a minor 5 3 2 3 2 3 g the first time 6 3 2 3 2 3 e minor 6 4 three four three four d five four three four three four c five four three four three four back to g the second time six four three four three four e minor six four three four three four back to d five four three four three four all right i know that's a lot to take in but if you pause and practice this on your own i promise it'll start to slowly make more sense and get a little bit easier each time you practice so let's go ahead and go through that whole thing without stopping awesome so go ahead and pause the video and make sure to practice this picking pattern if that's something you want to incorporate into your cover it can be a little bit tricky to remember which string you're picking with your right hand you know at any given point in time in the song so it does just come with practice the slower you practice and the more you practice the easier it'll get but with that being said let's go ahead and put everything we learned together to play through the whole song all right guys now that you know the chords the strumming and the picking or whatever it is that you want to use to play through this song it's your turn to have a little bit of fun so be sure to join me right here for my play along fast track cover portion of this tutorial where we will play through the whole song and i'll have all the lyrics and chords and everything you need to know on screen in front of you or if you find this to be a little bit too fast a little bit too challenging you can always check out my patreon page where i have customizable backing tracks that you can slow down speed up turn things on and off you know use the metronome and the drum lines and things like that on there so it's very tailorable to whatever it is that you want to practice so be sure to check that out on my patreon page where you'll also find printable guitar guides for every tutorial on my channel including this one and on top of that you can even send me videos of what you're working on or any questions you have and i will send you my video response back so all of that is available on my patreon page which is linked down below alright guys so that was my tutorial for how to play heat waves by glass animals on the guitar if you found this video helpful please be sure to give me a thumbs up down below as well as subscribe to my channel that way you never miss out on any other new tutorials here are my social media links 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 what you want to see next and i'll even do an occasional giveaway so be sure to follow me on those huge shout out and thank you to all of my patrons over on my patreon page for making tutorials just like this one possible i will have all their names on screen right now you guys are amazing i love you and thank you so much for all of your support but yeah that concludes this tutorial so be sure to check out my play along video right here and i will see you over there thanks for watching bye you