Past Life by Trevor Daniel / Selena Gomez Tutorial/Lesson
Past Life
Em, Bm, D, A, G
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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 past life by trevor daniel and selena gomez on the guitar so stay tuned if this is something you want to learn and make sure to subscribe to my channel that way you never miss out on a new tutorial and also make sure to follow me on instagram for your chance to win a free private lesson with me so the song is going to be pretty beginner friendly if you want to sing it in the same key as selena gomez and trevor daniel make sure that your guitar is in standard tuning and go ahead and put your capo on the first fret if you do not have a capo you can't play through this whole tutorial without one it'll just be a half step lower on top of that we only have five chords and only one of them is a bar chord but no worries i will be showing you an alternate fingering in case that's something that you're struggling with right now and then i also have three strumming patterns that i want to show you so let's go ahead and jump into an overview of what i'll be teaching you in this tutorial all right so like i said you only need to know five chords for this whole song those are e minor b minor d a and g now remember that b minor chord is a bar chord but like i said if you go to the chord section i will show you an alternate fingering in case that's something that you're struggling with so if you want to review any of these chords or are unfamiliar with any of them go ahead and skip to this time here where i will show you the breakdown of the cords however if you are already familiar with them then let's go ahead and move on to the strumming patterns that i'll be showing you in this tutorial so the first strumming pattern i want to show you guys is always the one that i start with with all of my tutorials which is just one simple down strum on the beat for every chord change if you're a beginner i always suggest that you do this first because it's a really great way to get used to the song and get used to knowing where those chord transitions are going to be before you start putting in the singing and harder strumming patterns and things like that so if you want to go over an example of what this would sound like in the song make sure to skip to this time right here where i will play through a little bit of it for you however if you feel like you don't need to do that and you want to just move into some of the other strumming patterns that we can use then let's go ahead and move on to strumming pattern two now strumming pattern two as you can see are just four down strums and it's going to sound a little something like this now just to note i actually do not use this strumming pattern in my cover here at the end the only reason i'm showing it to you guys is because strumming pattern three can be a little bit difficult to understand rhythmically so if strumming pattern three is really hard for you i felt like i wanted to put this strumming pattern two option in here in case you're struggling with different strumming patterns and things like that so if you want me to break it down for you a little bit more and show you how it would sound in the song then go ahead and skip to this time here for an example however if you want to jump straight into the strumming pattern that i do actually use for my cover then let's go ahead and jump into strumming pattern three so as you can see strumming pattern three is a lot longer we've got down down down down up down down down up and it's going to sound a little something like this now i know this strumming pattern seems really long and complicated however i do think that it's pretty accurate to the song so if you want me to break it down for you a little bit more and show you how we would use it in the example and go through it a little more slowly make sure to skip to this time right here so i can show you guys how to break that down however if you feel like you already got the rhythm just by watching me and things like that make sure to skip to the play through here at the end where i will go through the entire song and have all the lyrics and chords and everything on screen in front of you so we can play through it together but if you do feel like you want me to break this whole thing down for you a little bit more let's go ahead and jump into the more in-depth part of this tutorial and we'll start with the chords all right let's take a closer look at these chords like i said there's only five to play the whole song and we'll start with our e minor chord which looks like this and sounds like this next we have our b minor chord which again is our bar chord and that looks like this and sounds like this as promised if bar chords are something that you're struggling with right now you can do an alternate fingering where you don't have to bar the first chord or the first finger and that'll look like this and sound like this all right so feel free to use this fingering if bar chords are hard for you after that we've got our d chord which looks like this and sounds like this next we have a which looks like this and sounds like this and then the very last chord you need to know is our g chord which looks like this and sounds like this and those are the only five chords you need to know to play this song alright so once you have those chords memorized go ahead and take a minute here to practice transitioning between them the song does move a little bit fast especially if you're going to use the third strumming pattern so it is going to really help to be able to switch those chords really quickly so if that's something that you're struggling with right now and need a little help i do have a tmt on how to transition between chords faster so make sure to check that out if that's something that you want to watch however let's go ahead and jump into the strumming patterns that you can use with this song and if i could convince myself to feel it you know i would feel it i would perfect perfect timing all right so those of you familiar with any of my other tutorials know that i always start out with this one down strum strumming pattern usually this is my practice pattern but in this song i do actually use it in the song so i'm going to call this strumming pattern one and all you want to do is do one simple down strum on the beat for every chord change and practice doing that for the whole song so let's go ahead and go through an example of what that would look like if you put your e minor chord on that's the first chord in the song all we're gonna do is strum down once then you go to your next chord which is b minor strum down once then we've got d strum down once and then a and so now if you're a beginner what i want you to do is go to the end of this video where i'm doing the play through and just practice this one down strum pattern for the entire song until you get used to the singing and knowing what words you're going to be doing those transitions on and things like that so let me go ahead and go through an example with you for the first verse again i have my e minor chord on and we're just strumming down once for every chord change one two three four e minor three four e you got it trying to be all right awesome so you basically just want to do that for the entire song so that you get used to where those chord transitions are going to be this is really going to help you when we step up our game with our strumming patterns so now let's go ahead and jump into our second strumming pattern so as you can see our second strumming pattern is just four down strums and it's going to be very similar to strumming pattern one except this time we're going to do one down strum for every beat in the measure like i said at the beginning of this video i don't actually use this strumming pattern in my cover however i do realize that the pattern i do use is a little bit difficult so this is just in here in case any of you guys are beginners and you want to do kind of a fancy strumming pattern but not super fancy so anyway let's go over what this would sound like so it's basically going to be what we just practiced with strumming pattern one except we're going to be doing a down strum for every beat alright so go ahead and put your e minor chord on since that's the first chord in the song i'll count us in one two three four one two three four e minor two three four b minor two three all right awesome so you can see it's not that much harder than the first strumming pattern we're just making sure that we have a down strum for every bead in the measure um what i would suggest you do if you're going to use this pattern for the song is to add a little bit of a palm mute so what i'm doing there is i'm taking the side of my hand with the pick in it and i'm just resting it really really gently against my strings between the bridge and the sound hole here and then now whenever you strum see how it's more of a softer muted tone i think for this song it really suits the verses and the pre-choruses if you add a palm mute so let me go ahead and show you what this exact strumming pattern would sound like but with a palm mute let me count us in again one two three four one two three four e minor two three four b minor two three four d two three four a again e minor d minor d a you got it trying to be honest with my happiness don't know why i'm bad at this all right so again if you know how to do that palm you'd want to try it out i would suggest putting it in this song however if you do not feel comfortable with that you can of course do the regular four down strum strumming pattern and again this strumming pattern can be applied to the entire song however i like to actually jazz it up a little bit more and get it sounding a little bit more accurate to the original song and that's what i do in strumming pattern three so let's go ahead and go to strumming pattern three alright so as you can see our third strumming pattern is definitely the longest and most complicated we've got down down down down up down up down down down up now i know this seems really long and complicated but no worries we are going to break this down and we're actually going to be switching chords in the middle of this pattern but i'll get into all of that later first let's go ahead and go through the motions of this pattern so go ahead and put your e minor chord on since that's the first chord in the song and let's go through the motions we've got down down down up and then down up down and then down down up all right so the way i'm grouping these is kind of how it's going to sound in the song itself so again we've got one two three down up down up down down up all right so um this will make a lot more sense when we put it in rhythm so let me go ahead and show you one time what it sounds like in rhythm one two three four down down down down down all right so why don't you go ahead and practice that rhythm with me go ahead and put your e minor chord on and let's slow it down just a little bit so we can get um all of these motions in order one two three four down down down up down up down down down down down up down up down all right awesome so hopefully you can kind of hear that rhythm now what i want you to do next is we're going to add in some of these chord transitions and like i said we are going to add these chord transitions in the middle of this pattern so let me go ahead and split this pattern in half and where that line is that you see that's where we're going to be switching chords all right so let's practice this with our e minor and b minor chords okay so go ahead and put your e minor chord on and we're going to just play the first half of this pattern so we've got down down up all right then here you want to go to your next chord which is our b minor chord and then finish out the strumming pattern down up down down down up all right so why don't you go ahead and practice that with me put your e minor chord on so we've got just the first half down down up then switch your b minor chord and finish it out down up down down down up all right one more time down down down down up switch to b minor down up down down down awesome so that is where we're going to be switching chords for the entire song so let me go ahead and put the chord progressions on screen for you here and let's practice doing this all the way through so again we've got our e minor chord on just how we started down down down down up switch to your b minor finish it out down up down down down up now we'll move on to our d chord again it's the beginning half down down down down up then you go to your a and finish it out down up down down down up all right awesome so now what you want to do is practice stringing all of that together without stopping so let's go ahead and practice that i'll count us in one two one two three four e minor b minor awesome so hopefully you were able to hear where we're going to be doing those core transitions and everything now the next thing i want you to do is again if you feel comfortable with this and you want to practice it i want you to put a palm mute with this pattern because i think the pommeo is really going to dampen the sound of the strings a little make it a little bit more rhythmic and staccato and i think that that fits really well with this song so let's go ahead and do exactly what we just did but add the little palm mute okay let me count us in again one two one two three four e minor d minor d a e minor b minor d a so hopefully if you are able to add that palm you then go ahead and do that for the verses and the pre-choruses i do think that it adds to the song and makes it a little bit more closer to the original and now if you're up to it one last little thing that you can do to just kind of put the little icing on the cake is we want to accent certain beats in this strumming pattern okay so let me underline the beats i want you to accent when i say accent i mean just give it a little bit more force with your strumming hand we're going to try to make it a little bit more um louder than the other beats so let me go ahead and show you an example first i've got my e minor chord on i'm going to accent all of the down strums that are underlined so i have down down down up and then i switch to b minor down up down down down up so you can kind of hear how we're kind of accenting the beat of every measure all right so let me do that again without stopping down down down up down up down down down a b down down down up a all right so basically it's super easy all you want to do is just give those down strums a little bit more energy when you're strumming if you find this really difficult to do you do not have to do this at all i just think that it adds a little something to the rhythm so um why don't you try that with me put your e minor chord on and let's go ahead and accent these underlying down strums one two three four e minor b minor b a b minor b a all right awesome so once you can do that you can actually play through the whole song because like i said i don't really use strumming pattern two this strumming pattern here is the one that i actually use when i play through my cover and what i'll do is i'll do the palm mute for the verses and the pre-choruses and then i'll let it ring for all of the choruses all right great and so once you have that down all you have to do now is speed it up so we can get it at tempo so let me go ahead and show you what it sounds like at tempo one two three four so it is considerably faster than we were just going but no worries if you are having trouble keeping up just pause the video and practice at your own pace until you can keep up with me but now let's go ahead and try this at tempo so put your e minor chord on we're gonna do exactly what we just did but we're gonna speed it up this time so let me count us in one two three four e minor b minor d a again you got it i'm trying to be honest with my happiness all right awesome so once you can do all of that with the accents and the palm muting and you know you've got those chord transitions down and you can do it at tempo then you are ready to play through the entire song again if any of this is too difficult for you right now make sure to pause the video and practice at your own pace until you can keep up but now let's go ahead and put everything that we learned together with all the chords and the transitions and the strumming patterns and put all of that together to play through the whole song again i will have the lyrics and chords and everything you need to know on screen in front of you so um yeah let's go ahead and jump into the playthrough i'm trying to be honest with my happiness don't know why i'm mad at this i don't wanna sit in all my sadness i know it's a habit of mine perfect perfect timing i start but i don't know how to end don't read don't worry remind me i ruined it before it began i'll never let you figure me out sitting here talking to myself thinking how i used to use you the only thing i'm used to and if i could convince myself to feel it you know i would feel it i would perfect perfect timing i start but i don't know how to end don't read don't read remind me i ruined it before it began last time never figure me out last night was the last time was the last time i'll never let you figure me out sitting here talking to night was the myself night will never go away all right so that was my tutorial for past life by trevor daniel and selena gomez i really hope that you liked it if it did help you make sure to give me a thumbs up down below as well as to subscribe to my channel and turn on that little bell notification that way you never miss out on a new tutorial here are my social media sites 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 and i'll pull you guys on things that you want to see and i'll occasionally do a giveaway on there as well one last little plug if you liked the shirt i was wearing in today's tutorial this is my forever faithful cords shirt you can find this along with a lot of other different designs in my merch store link down below as well as under this video every purchase there really helps my channel to grow and allows me to continue making these free tutorials for you guys so thank you so much for anyone who's ever supported me in that way but i guess that concludes this video again i really hope that it helped you and i will see you in my next one bye so you