Ho Hey by The Lumineers Tutorial/Lesson
Ho Hey
C, F/C, Am, Gadd4
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Video transcript
hey everyone it's Ellen here and today I'm going to be showing you guys how to play Ho Hey by The Lumineers on my zeger zad ADC e guitar so if you're interested in this model I will make sure to link more information down below um here is 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 only need to know four different chord shapes to play through this song and we're going to start out with our C major which looks like this and sound sounds like this and by the way if you don't know how to read these chord charts your sing on screen I Do cover how to do that my free beginner course right here on YouTube so make sure to check that out from here we're going to go to our F over c chord next is our a minor chord and then the last one is our G add four chord all right and just a quick tip for transitioning you'll notice that your pointer finger never leaves this spot between these chord shapes so I would recommend using that as an anchor finger to pay attention to when you're practicing those transitions um but yeah those are the only 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 those chords shapes as well as practice transitioning back and forth between them cuz it'll make learning the rest of the song so much easier and if this is a skill you're currently struggling with I do have an entire practice with me playlist right here on YouTube where we go through this skill in real time together so make sure to check that out if you need to um but once you have these chords under your belt then we can talk about the strumming that you can use for this song all right so as I always say if you are a beginner at guitar or you're somebody who struggles with playing guitar while singing at the same time the first thing I would suggest you do is to bring up the song and go ahead and play through it with a single down on every chord change as you sing through the song and just take this time to really get used to what word you're singing whenever those chords are changing and things like that so here's a quick example of what that would look like for the chorus I belong with you you belong with me you're my sweet I belong with you you belong with me you're my sweet all right so that's just a quick example but you would essentially want to do that for the entire song and just really make sure you know where those chords are changing whenever you're singing and this actually something you can do right now if you want to check out my patreon page I do have this entire guide available to download and print out so I'll make sure to leave that link in the description box for you um but once you get used to this kind of single down strum and you know where those chords are changing then we can go ahead and talk about a full strumming pattern that you can use for this song all right guys so I'm going to start you out with what I believe is the easier of the two strumming rhythms to show you for this song um we're going to be in a 16th note count here so it's going to sound like this we have 1 E and A 2 E and A 3 E and A for e and a one and E and a three and E and A down down up down up down down up down up all right I'm going to go ahead and put a vertical line here in the middle and basically what that's going to represent is where we want to change chords so throughout this song There are going to be places where we're going to split this pattern into two like half measures and change chords in the middle whereas other times we're going to hold out the entire measure for one single chord so a good example of this is the chorus so we can see here we're starting on our a minor you would do that for the left half down down up switch to your G at four down up down up then here on your C you would hold it out for the entire measure so we have down down up down up hold all right so if we string that together and kind of speed it up a little it would sound like this down up down down up down down up down up hold I belong with you you belong with me you're my sweet I belong with you you belong with me you're myet all right so that's an example of where we would want to use this first strumming pattern I would recommend it for the choruses throughout the song as well as the bridge so let's go ahead and take a look at that bridge section there we're starting on our F over c chord we're going to go down down up down up to our c chord down down up down up to G down down up down up back to C then on this next line we have F to C and then G is going to get a full measure so we're going to hold it out okay back to F C to g c and from here it goes back into the chorus so I think if we speed it up and put some singing you'll hear how that all comes together so here's the bridge all together we need it now let's hope oh for some G oh weeding out and then go back to the chorus I belong with you you belong with me my all right this song is fairly repetitive so if you can get this strumming pattern down you can apply it for the entire song but I would recommend it mostly for the choruses and the bridge that we just went through for the verses I actually have a second strumming pattern that I think sounds really reminiscent to the original song so let's go ahead and talk about strumming pattern to hey really quick in addition to the printable guide we've been looking at did you know I also offer customizable backing tracks polls for What songs you want to learn next and even video chats if you're having trouble you can unlock all these perks and more if you become a patron which helps me grow my channel and make more videos just like this one or if patreon's not your thing you can still help me out a lot by giving me a thumbs up and leaving a comment below to help me reach more people in YouTube's recommendations it only takes a second but makes a huge difference so thanks so much and let's get back into it all right guys so for the second strumming pattern we're still going to be in a 16th note Rhythm so this time we have one E and A two e and a three e and a four E and A 1 2 a three e and and a down down up down up down down up down up down down up all right so this Rhythm can be a little trickier if you are new to you know understanding rhythms and things like that um but this one I think sounds really good with the verses so let's go ahead and put on our c chord when we're looking at the intro in verse one we've got down down up down down up all right um and basically what you want to do is you're going to change chords right at this vertical line for that last down up we're going to go to our F over C all right so we have C down up down up down F back to C FC all right so hopefully you can hear how that's reminiscent to the original song um so you would use this throughout the entire intro as well as most of the verse so let me go ahead and show you what the verse would sound like we've got I've been trying to do it right I've been living a l life I've been sleeping here instead I've been sleeping in my bed so here when we get to the a minor and the g at the end of the verse this is where it's going to change a little so now I'm going to move move the vertical line to the first half of this strum pattern on our a minor you're going to stay on your first two beats down down and then you're going to use this next up strum to switch to your G up down up down down up all right so the strumming rhythm is the same but we're splitting the chord in a different spot and it's just going to be for that last last line of all the verses in all right so this strumming Rhythm can be a little tricky to get used to but I promise if you slow it down and take your time to make those core transitions it'll make a lot of sense so let me go ahead and just play through the entire first verse for you so you can hear how it sounds all in context I've been trying to do it right I've been living a lonely life I've been sleeping here instead I've been sleeping in my bed sleeping in my bed all right so you could apply that for all of the verses throughout the song and then like I said earlier you would switch back to string pattern one for the bridge and the choruses but yeah that's basically how you could play through this entire song and these strumming rhythms that I would recommend all right guys so again go ahead and pause the video and take as much time as you need to really get that count right for all of the strumming rhythms and then what you want to do is work on internalizing it to the point where you can play it without counting it in your head and that's when you will be able to add singing on top of it a little more easily um but anyways once you have the chords and the Transitions and the strumming rhythms down we can put together everything we've learned in this video today to play through the song one 2 ready go I've been trying to do it right I've been living a lonely life I've been sleeping here instead I've been sleeping in in my bed sleeping in my bed Want to Have Fun jamming to 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 FastTrack and playong guitar tutorials I'll make sure to leave a link in the description box down below if you enjoyed learning this song with me then you should definitely 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 bye