Love Me Tender by Elvis Presley Tutorial/Lesson
Love Me Tender
D, E7, A7, F#7, Bm, D7, G, Gm, B7
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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 Love Me Tender by [music] Elvis Presley on the guitar. So stay tuned if this is something that you want to learn. But really quick before we jump into the tutorial, I wanted to take a second to thank today's sponsor, Burrows Guitars. If you're looking for a quality beginner guitar that is both durable and beautiful while still having an affordable price tag, [music] consider a Burroughs. Designed in and named after the five burrows of New York City, these are the perfect starter guitar for anyone [music] excited to begin their music journey. Not only are they super easy and fun to play, but these guitars are the best you'll find at this inexpensive price point. With six different models and several finishes to choose from, you'll be sure to find the one that fits your personality and musical tastes perfectly. Best of all, Burough's guitars ship directly and [music] exclusively from Adorama, a trusted site for all your creative needs. So, if playing [music] guitar is something you or a loved one have been considering, check out the links in the description box and get started [music] today. All right, guys. So, I'm going to classify today's song as kind of a beginner/intermediate level just because there are a few things that can be a little bit tricky about it. But first of all, let's go ahead and talk about our guitar. [music] You will need it to be in standard tuning and we do not need a capo to play this song in its original key. On top of that, I have nine different chord shapes [music] to show you today and two of them are bar chords, which is kind of what pushes this more on the intermediate side. But to counterbalance that, there's only one real strumming pattern and it's super simple and you can use it to play through the whole song. [music] So, um, with all of that being said, let's go ahead and jump into what those chords look like. All right, guys. So, I've zoomed in a little bit to take a closer look at these chords. And we're going to start with [music] our D chord, which looks like this and sounds like this. And by the way, if you don't know how to read these chord charts that you're seeing on screen, I do cover how to do that in my beginner series, episode 3. So, I will link that right here for those of you who need it. Moving on, our next chord is E7. After that we have A7. Then we have F sharp 7. Next is our first bar chord which is our B minor chord. After that we have our D7. Next is our G chord. [music] After that is our other bar chord which is our G minor chord. And then the last chord shape you need to know is our B7. And those are the nine chord shapes you need to know to play this song. So, like I always say, if any of those chord shapes were new to you, go ahead and pause the video and just make sure to [music] take some time to memorize them and practice transitioning back and forth between them. It'll make learning the rest of the song so much easier. [music] Um, but once you've done that, we can go ahead and jump into that strumming pattern. So, before we jump right into the actual strumming pattern I want to show you for this song, I do want to quickly cover a practice pattern, which is just one downstrum for every chord change. This is something I always suggest beginners do, or if you are someone who struggles with singing and playing at the same time, this is a really great like first [music] step into that. But basically all you want to do is for every chord change that you see throughout the song, you just want to do a single downstrum and practice singing [music] through it. That way you kind of get that idea of where those chord transitions are going to be, what word you're singing, things like that. So a quick example of what that would look like would be like this. Love me [music and singing] tender, love me, never let me [singing and music] go. All right. Right. So, you basically just want to do that exact same thing for the rest of the song. Something you'll notice when you do that is that when you get to the chorus, some of these chords will go a little bit faster. So, for example, love me tender, love me true, all [music and singing] my dreams fulfill. All right. So, just with that little section, you can already see that with the chorus, we're doing a few like the strums feel a little faster because we're not holding them out as long as we are in the verses. So, this is all stuff that you'll figure out when you do the initial playthrough with the practice pattern. If you are a beginner, I do have this entire guide available on my Patreon page for you to print out. So, make sure to check that out. I will link it in the ard right up here. But once you've done that, we can go ahead and talk about the actual strumming pattern that you can hear in Elvis Presley's version. So, if you did take the time to do the practice pattern, then today's actual strumming pattern is not going to be much more difficult. Basically, we're still taking this single downstrum that we practiced, but we're kind of splitting it a little bit with the way that we strum. So, basically, if you put your D chord on, instead of strumming all four strings at once, what we want to do is kind of separate the bass note or like the bottom note. So, for our D chord, that would be our fourth D string. You're just going to play that by itself and then follow through with the other three strings. All right. So al together it would be like this. Base rest bass [music] rest. All right. And basically you just want to do that for all of the chords. So really quickly let me just go through all of the chords so you're just aware of how we're going to play them. On our D chord, we're going to do D string by itself and then the rest. On E7, we're going to do E string by itself [music] and then the rest. A7 is A string. F sharp 7 is D string. B minor chord is going to be our A string. D7 is going to be our D string. G chord is going to be our E string. G minor is also going to be our E string. And our B7 chord is going to be our A string. All right. So, super straightforward. Basically, we're still doing the single downstrum. We're just going to separate out that bottom bass note first and then strum the rest of the strings. So, let's go ahead and do a quick example of how this applies to the song. Let's bring back up our verse and our chorus as an example. So, in our verses, we're going to play each of these chords twice. Okay? So, it's going to be like D bass strum [music] twice. Then E7 [music] twice. A7 twice. back to D. All right. Then for the choruses, because these chords go a lot kind of they come at you a little bit quicker, we're just going to do the strumming pattern one time for most of these chords. So we have D, F sharp 7, [music] B minor, D7, G, minor, D. And this one's going to be twice. D, B7, E7's going to be twice. A7 is twice [music] and then D is twice. So, as a quick example, I'll go ahead and go through one of the verses and choruses and put it all together so you can hear what that sounds like. [music] Love [singing] me tender, love me sweet, [music] [singing] never let me go. Oh, [music] you have [singing] made my life complete and I [singing and music] love you so. Love [singing] me tender, love me true. All [singing] my dreams fulfilled for my [singing] darling. [music] I love you and I [singing] [music] always will. All right. Awesome. Something to quickly mention is you might have noticed for the playthrough that I don't like to use a pick. It's because for me, it's sometimes difficult to hit the string that you are meaning to [music] with a pick. And for me, it's always been easier to strum with my fingers and my thumb. So, if you are somebody who struggles with strumming the right notes or [music] the right strings, you might want to try kind of like a a thumb strum. Uh I think it's easier cuz it's like more tactile [music] and you can tell which string you're like touching before you strum it. Um so that's something just to try if you are like me and struggle with that. Um, but when I play through my cover here at the end, I will be doing it without a pick. Um, but that's up to you. Um, so something else I wanted to quickly add into this strumming pattern that adds just that little something extra that makes it sound [music] just like the original recording is we're going to kind of go back and forth between our bass note. So, like I said, with our D chord, the bass note is your fourth D string. But for the verses, especially when you're going to the same um chord and you're playing through it twice, what you can actually do is change the bass note. So on our D chord, we can go from our D string to our A string the next time. [music] All right? And that's actually what you can hear in the original recording as well. So for the D chord, we would have D strum, A [music] strum, D string [singing] strum, A string strum. So, it kind of gives it that more of that like back and forth kind of bouncy feeling that was super classic in the 50s. So, um we can do that with all of these chords. So, for our E7 chord, we're going to go from our low E string [music] and on the next one, you want to pick your A string as that bass note. So, E7 would be E strum, [music and singing] A strum, E string, strum, A string, strum. Next is our A7. This is going to go from our A string. So five [music] strum to your low E string. [music] So you go back and forth. A string [singing] strum. E string strum. A string [music] strum. E string strum. And then again we'd get back to D. All right. So, let me just go ahead and show you that verse and see what that sounds like when you alternate the bass note. [music] Love me tender, love me [singing] sweet, never let [music] me go. You have [singing] made my [music] life complete and I love [singing] you so. [music] All right. And you can actually apply this to parts of the chorus as well. So like I said earlier, the chorus comes at you a lot faster with these chord transitions. So you don't have time to alternate the bass note except on a few of these chords. So the chorus would be like this. Love me tender, love me [singing] true. All my dreams [music] fulfill. For [singing] my darling, I love [music] you and I always [singing] will. [music] All right, then you would jump right back into the next verse. Repeat it exactly [music] the same way. One of the best things about this song if you're learning is that it is super repetitive. We just go from verse to chorus, verse to chorus. [music] So once you get that under your fingers, you can play through the whole song. Before we jump into the playthrough, there is one last thing that I almost forgot to mention. At the very end of the original recording, you can hear Elvis, you know, when he sings it a little differently. For my darling, I love you on A7. and I [singing and music] always he goes up there then he says will and that's [music] on your D chord. Um on the original recording you can kind of hear this little random notes at the end. So I just want to show you how to do that really quick. If you are on your D chord shape on your left hand, what you want to do is you can see your pointer finger is already on that second fret of the G string. So you just want to pick that once. [music] Then since your pinky is not really doing anything, you want to stretch that over to the fifth fret of the high E string. And we're going to pick that twice. Then your um pointer finger again, you just want to move that over to the high E string. So you're already here on the G string. You just move it down two strings. And then you just pick that once. All right. So the whole thing there is you would strum it and I always will [singing and music] and then just come in with these last little notes. All right. So if you want to sound just like the original recording, that's how you can do that. Totally optional, though. Um but I just wanted to show you guys how you could easily fit that in [music] if you wanted to. Um but with that being said, let's go ahead and jump into the playrough. [music and singing] Never let me go. 2 ready [music] go. Love me [singing and music] tender. Love me sweet. Never [singing] let [music] me go. You [singing] have made my life complete and [singing] I love you so. [music] Want to have fun playing through 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 playalong tutorials. I'll make sure to leave a link in the description box down below as well as in this iCard right up here. All right guys, but that does it for my tutorial today. I really hope that it helped. If it did, make sure to give me a thumbs up down below, as well as subscribe to my channel. That way, you never miss out on another new tutorial. Another huge thank you to Burough's Guitars for sponsoring this video, as well as a special shout out to my top patrons over on my Patreon page. I will have all of their names listed on screen right now. And of course, a thank you goes out to all of my patrons for supporting my channel and making videos just like this one possible. You guys are awesome. Here are my social media sites in [music] 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 I'm working on. I'll pull you guys on what you want to learn next and I'll even do giveaways on there a few times a year. So, make sure to check it out. But, um, I think that ends this tutorial. So, thank you again so much for watching. I really hope that it helped and I will see you in my next [music] one. Bye.