I Knew You Were Trouble by Taylor Swift Tutorial/Lesson
I Knew You Were Trouble
G, D, Em, C
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Video transcript
I knew you were trouble when you walked in. I knew you were trouble when you walked in. I knew you were trouble when you walked in. I knew you were trouble when you walked in. Hi, my name is Ellen and today I'm going to be showing you guys how to play I Knew You Were Trouble by Taylor Swift on the guitar. And as you can see, I'm playing this without a cable with very basic chords. So stay tuned if this is something that you want to learn. So you guys are always asking me to find you ways to play songs that are very easy but also don't require a capo. So, I was looking up some of the chords online and um there is a way to play it without a cable, but it requires a lot of bar chords and it's very complicated, lots of sharps and everything. Um or you can also take a cable and put it on the fourth fret and then your chords become very easy. But I wanted to show you guys a way I figured out how to play this without a capo, but is also still very easy. And the secret to the whole thing is the way you tune your guitar. So, instead of having your guitar in standard tuning like I usually have it in my tutorials, I'm going to show you guys how to tune it down a half step. And that's going to be the whole secret to learning this song without a cable and still having it be really, really easy to play. So, just in case you're super new to guitar, um these little pegs up here, this is what tunes your strings. And you can tune them up or down. And in this case, we're going to tune them down one half step. So, I'm going to go ahead and show you guys what those strings sound like on my guitar. And you can go ahead and tune your guitar so that it matches mine. So, when you tune your guitar down a half step, this lowest E is actually going to become a D sharp. So, it's going to sound like this. Okay. The next string which is A is going to become a G sharp. So it sounds like this. Okay. The third string, which is usually a D, is going to be tuned down to a C sharp. So, it sounds like this. Okay, the fourth string is usually an E, but we're going to tune it down to an F sharp. So, it sounds like this. Okay. The fifth string is usually a B, but we're going to tune it down to an A sharp. So, it's going to sound like this. Okay. And the very top string or bottom, the very highest string is usually another E, but we're going to tune it down to a D sharp. So, it's going to sound like this. So once you finish tuning your guitar down a half step, the rest of the song becomes really easy to learn. So, I'm going to go ahead and show you guys the chords that we'll be using. So, the reason I say this song is really easy to learn once you tune your guitar down is because there's only four chords you need for the entire song. And they're all pretty basic. So, I think a lot of you guys will already know them, but I'll go ahead and show those to you right now. So, the first chord you need to know is a G, which looks like this, and sounds like this. Okay, after that you need to know D which looks like this and sounds like this. Okay. You also need to know E minor, which looks like this, and sounds like this. And then the very last chord you need to know is C, which looks like this. And sounds like this. So, why don't you go ahead and practice those chords until you've have them memorized and you can transition between them. And then I'm going to go ahead and move on to strumming and I'll show you a couple of strumming patterns you can use. So, since this song is a little bit faster and has a little bit more going on than some other Taylor Swift songs, I would suggest strumming the whole song. But later on in the tutorial, I will show you a picking pattern if you really want to pick. But, um, I'm going to go ahead and show you a couple of variations on strumming. So, as I always suggest, if you're not very confident in your strumming, just to start out with a very basic strumming pattern, which I'm about to show you, and then once you get that down, it'll be a lot easier for you to add stuff to it and dress it up. So the most basic strumming pattern you can do is to play one chord on the beat for every measure. And what I mean by that is this. I'm playing each chord twice on the first beat. And that's it. They're all downstrokes. And if this is all you can handle, that's fine. Once upon a time, a few mistakes ago, I was in your sights. You got me alone. You found me. You found me. E. If that's too simple for you and you want a really easy way to dress it up, go ahead and just play each of those chords double. So, instead of just twice for each chord, you're going to play each chord four times. What I mean by that is this. Notice it's all still downstrokes. All you're doing is doubling each chord. Once upon a time, a few mistakes ago, I was in your sights. You got me alone. You found me. You found me. You found me. If you've got that down, all you have to do now is add in a little bit of a palm mute. And what I mean by that is you're just going to take your hand and kind of mute the strings between each chord. Like that. Um, and it's all going to be the exact same pattern as I just showed you, but with a little bit of muting. It sounds a lot um more upbeat. So, it'll sound like this. So, it's very similar to the one I just showed you, except we're muting each chord in between all downstrokes still. Once upon a time, a few mistakes ago, I was in your sights. You got me alone. You found me. You found me. You found me. So, if you like that strumming pattern, you can play it for the entire song, even the chorus. Cuz I knew you were trouble when you walked in. Shame on me now. Okay. Um, if you want a little bit more variation, I'm going to go ahead and show you a second strumming pattern that you can use. So, this next strumming pattern I'm going to show you is very similar to the first one, except now we're going to add in a little bit of an upstroke. So, it's going to sound like this. Down, down, down, up, down, down, up. Once upon a time, a few mistakes ago, I was in your sights. You got me alone. You found me. You found me. You found me. And again, you can apply this strumming pattern to the whole song, even the chorus. So the chorus would sound like this. Cuz I knew you were drunk when you walked in. Shame on me that me to places I'd never been. Down, down, down, down, down, up, down, down, down, down, down, down, And if you can get back down, another way to make it more upbeat is the same as we did in the first one. We're just going to add in a little bit of a palm mute after the long down stroke. So instead of this down, down, up, down, down, up, we're going to palm mute after the first down. So down down down down down down down down Once upon a time a few mistakes ago I was in your sight. You got me alone. You found me. You found me. You found me. Now, if you're someone who just absolutely loves picking on their guitar, then I'm going to go ahead and show you one picking pattern that you can use for this song. If you want to pick the verses, I have a pattern for you, and it sounds very nice, almost kind of like speak now. You're just going to pick it like this. Once upon a time, a few mistakes ago, I was in your sights. You got me alone. You found me. You found me. You found me. E. So, the way I'm doing that is you can hear the rhythm is exactly the same as the strumming, except now we're going to be using our hands to pick the strings instead of strumming them. So, I'm going to go ahead and show you guys how I play that. So, if you go ahead and put your G chord on, all I'm going to be doing is picking each individual note instead of strumming them all at once. So, with my thumb, I'm going to pick the top E string. And then with these three fingers, I'm going to pick the bottom three strings. So, when you pluck them all at the same time, it sounds like this. And the nice thing about this picking pattern is that these three fingers will never move. They're always going to be picking these last three strings. The only thing that's going to move is your thumb. So for G, you're going to pick the top E string with the other three fingers. For D, you're going to be picking the fourth string. For E minor, again, you're going to be picking the top E string. And then for C, you're going to be picking the fifth string. So again, that's six 4 6 5. Once you've got that down, you just have to put it in rhythm and then you have your picking pattern. And if you want to add in that mute, you can do that with picking two. So you can see that with each chord that I'm playing, I'm kind of muting it in between. If you plan on picking the verses, that's great. Um, I still suggest strumming the choruses though, just because the chorus in the song is very powerful. There's a lot of stuff going on, and if you pick it, it's just not going to have the same effect. But of course, ultimately, that choice is up to you. That's just my suggestion. Um, so now go ahead and practice all the strumming patterns and this picking pattern that I showed you if you want to. Um, when you have those down and you feel pretty comfortable with them, go ahead and continue this video and I'm going to take you through the entire song and I'll list all the chords in front of you and we'll play through it together. So, hopefully you guys feel pretty comfortable with everything now. So, let's go ahead and put all of it together and play through the whole song. I'm going to go a little bit slower just so we can all keep up. And I'm going to try to add as much um picking and strumming and everything that I can just so we have a little bit of variation. So go ahead and put your G chord on, get ready, and we'll go through the whole song. Good luck. Once upon a time, a few mistakes ago, I was in your sights. You got me alone. You found me. You found me. You found me. E, I guess you didn't care. And I guess I liked that. And when I fell hard, you took a step back without me. Without me. And it's longer when it's next to me. didn't realize things. Cuz I knew you were true when you walked in. So shame on me that I flew me to places I'd never been. Till you put me down. Oh, I knew you were drunk when you were dead. So shame on me that flew me to places I never been. Now I'm lying on the cold, hard ground. Oh. Trouble, trouble, trouble. Oh. Trouble, trouble, trouble. No apologies. He'll never see you cry. Pretend he doesn't know that he's the reason why you're drowning. You're drowning. And I heard you move on from whispers in the street. A new notch in your belt is all I'll ever be. And now I see. Now I see. E. He was long gone. When you met me and realize the joke is on me cuz I knew you were true when you walked in. Shame on me that I flew me to places I never been till you put me down. Oh, I knew you were trouble when you walked. Shame on me now. Flew me to places I'd never been. Now I'm lying on the cold hard ground. Oh, trouble travel. Oh, trouble, trouble, trouble on the sidest or her or anyone or anything. Yeah. Knew you were trouble when you walked in. She wanted me now. Flew me to places I couldn't. Till you put me down. How I knew you were true when you walked in. Shame on me now. Flew me to places I never been. Now I'm lying on the cold hard road. Oh, trouble travel. Oh, trouble travel. I knew you were true when you walked in. Trouble travel. I knew you were trouble when you walked in. Trouble, trouble, trouble. So, that was my tutorial. I hope it helped you guys. Sorry, my voice is giving out a little bit. I was getting kind of sick before this and I think recording this video just like pushed it over the edge. But um I just want to say really quick that if you like this video, make sure to like it down below and also maybe leave a comment or um subscribe if you're looking forward to more tutorials like this in the future cuz I do upload a lot of tutorials on my channel. And um also I want to say really quick that the two winners I've chosen for my 10,000 subscriber giveaway have been chosen. So make sure if you entered to comment on that video to check your personal messages and see if I've messaged you. So I should probably go now before I completely lose my voice. I hope this helped and I'll see you guys next time. Bye.