Just the Way You Are by Bruno Mars Tutorial/Lesson
Just the Way You Are
D, Bm, G
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Video transcript
hey my name is Ellen and today let's learn how to play Just the Way You Are by Bruno Mars on the guitar 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 alright guys so you only need to know three chord shapes to play through this song and we're going to start with our D major which looks like 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 in my beginner course so make sure to check that out here the next chord shape is our B minor and then the last chord shape is our G foreign and those are the only chords you need to know to play through this song so if any of these chord shakes are new to you go ahead and make sure to pause the video and just take a second to memorize how they look as well as practice transitioning back and forth between them the song is super repetitive in the chord structure so as long as you can transition from D to B minor to G back to D you can play through the whole song so if transitioning is something that you need help with make sure to check out my practice with me Series where we build that skill together but after you do that we can go ahead and talk about the strumming pattern alright guys so for this trimming I did come up with something that I think sounds really good with this song but I am going to teach you kind of like an easier version and then a harder version so this is the easier version on screen right now so let's go ahead and zoom in and talk about the Rhythm alright guys so we are going to be counting this in a 16th note rhythm today so if you don't know what that means or how to count that make sure to check out my free beginner course because we do cover that there but basically let's go ahead and break down this Rhythm we have one E and A two e and a three e and a four Yanda all right so one two down now we are going a little bit under Tempo this song if you wanted to play this full strumming pattern you would have to go a little bit faster so at more of a full speed it would sound like this one two up e and four one two up e and four down down up up down down down up up down down and now to play through the whole song you would basically take this strumming pattern and play it two times per chord so like I said earlier this structure of the song is really simple it's just D B minor G back to D for the entire song so you just want to pair this pattern through twice with each chord so we're going to start with our D chord down up up down down twice then you go to your next chord B minor down down up up down down twice then we have our G chord same pattern okay all right and you could use this strumming pattern to play through the entire song if you wanted to um however like I said this is kind of like the easier version I actually like to play more of a full pattern when I play through it so let me go ahead and show that to you now so as you can see I've added a few extra down and up strums in here so now the full rhythm is going to sound more like this one E and A two e and a three e and a four E and A I know it seems pretty complicated but I think once you internalize the Rhythm it's not as bad so down down down up up down down down up all right and again at full Tempo would sound more like this one and two uh e and four and a one and two up e and four and a down down down up up down down down up down down down up up down down down all right so if you can manage to put all of those down and up strums in I do think it matches the feel of this song really well because it kind of sounds really happy and bouncy and so basically same thing applies here as with the easier version you want to play through this pattern two times per chord so we have d twice then you go to your B minor twice then we have G two times back to D so once you get that pattern down all you want to do is just speed it up a little by little until you can play it more at full speed so if you were to sing it at the original Tempo it would sound more like this her eyes her eyes remember all right so you could sing that for the entire or you could use this pattern for the entire song with the chorus it would sound more like this when I see your face thank you awesome now I totally understand that if you are a beginner this strumming pattern can seem very daunting so just make sure to pause the video and take as much time as you need to really internalize that strumming Rhythm and make sure also you understand how to count that strumming Rhythm um and then as you start to play through it more and more it'll become more like muscle memory in your strumming hand and it'll be a little bit easier and you won't be like counting each beat so rigidly it'll take some time and getting used to but I promise if you put in the practice time that it will come more naturally soon enough but once you have that strumming pattern down we can actually talk a little bit about a picking pattern that you can do as well and guys really quick before we jump into the rest of the video I wanted to take a second to kind of sponsor myself if you are struggling with anything that you've encountered in this tutorial so far like the strumming rhythms the chord transitions bar chords things like that if you have questions about anything you can always send me a video of whatever you're working on and whatever questions you have and I will send you a video response back and this is just one of the perks that I offer through my patreon page as well as many more so I will make sure to link that in the description box below if you want to check it out it's a great way to help support my channel so I can continue making videos just like this one while also getting your hands on some exclusive perks that I have for all of my patrons so I hope that you'll check that out and with that being said let's go ahead and jump into the picking pattern alright guys so this baking pattern is going to be totally optional but if you are somebody who likes to finger pick I think that this sounds really pretty with the intro as well as the outro of the song it kind of leads in and Fades out really nicely so let's go ahead and zoom in and look at this tab alright guys so first of all if you're not sure how to read guitar tabs I did make a pretty cool video right here that explains the basics of how to do that so I would recommend checking that out first but then once you understand that we can come back and take a look at this tab so basically what we want to do is we're going to do a little bit of an arpeggio up and down each of these chords so starting with our D chord you're just going to put the D chord shape on your left hand and with your right hand what I want you to do is take your pointer middle and ring finger and you're going to lay those on the bottom three strings the g b and the E strings and they're going to kind of stay there this whole time that we're picking your thumb is going to cover the bass note so in our D chord the bass note is our fourth D string so that's where my thumb is going to go but again these three fingers are going to stay on the bottom three strings so basically all you want to do is you're going to start with the base note thumb then pick each finger going down the guitar just like that and remember you want to assign one finger to one string and then you want to come after you go down the guitar you want to come back up three two so that's the whole arpeggio and you want to do that twice just like we did with the strumming all right and then it's going to be the same for the other chords as well so we have our B minor chord next now remember these three fingers are going to stay on the bottom three strings but now your thumb is going to move to the new bass note which is the a string all right but the pattern is the same so we have I want to do that twice and then we go to our G chord same thing these three fingers are still on the bottom three strings but now your thumb is on this low E string because that's the base but again the pattern is exactly the same all right and then you just go back to D nice and then like I said the whole song repeats in that order for chords so you just repeat it over and over so all together the entire picking tab sounds like this thank you all right and like I said I think it sounds really pretty with the intro oh foreign then right here I would go into the strumming her eyes her eyes make the stars look like they're not shiny all right and again you could use this for the outro as well the last time he sings through it it's the chorus it sounds really romantic when I see your face it's not a thing that I would change cause you're amazing Just the Way You Are yeah yeah all right so basically those are the two places I would recommend using the picking pattern if you wanted to venture into that otherwise you could totally do strumming for the entire song so go ahead and pause the screen and just take as much time as you need to to learn through this picking slash tab portion and then once you have that down under your belt then we can go ahead and play through the song one two ready go oh the risers she's so beautiful You Wanna Have Fun jamming out to 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 if you enjoyed learning this song with me then you should definitely check out this video not only does it have a really similar Vibe but it's just as easy to play so I'll see you over there bye please