Stitches by Shawn Mendes Tutorial/Lesson
Stitches
Am, G, C, F
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Video transcript
hi my name is Ellen and today I'm going to be showing you guys how to play stitches by Shawn Mendes on the guitar so stay tuned if this is something that you want to learn and I've been hurt before but no so in order to play this in the same key that Shan Mendes sings it in you will need a capo on your first fret if you don't have one you can still follow this tutorial all the way through with the same chords and strumming and picking and everything it'll just be a half step lower than John Mendes sings it in the song is pretty great if you're a beginner because there's only four cord you need to know so let's go ahead and jump into how those look I know make out all right so now let's go ahead and take a look at the chords you need to know for this song the first one is a minor which looks like this and sounds like this after that you need to know G which looks like this and sounds like this then you need to know C which looks like this and sounds like this and then the last chord you need to know is f which looks like this and sounds like this and those are the only four chords you need to know for this song and just asci side know if you're not really great with bar chords and this F is a little hard for you to play there is an alternate fingering that looks like this and sounds like this so go ahead and try playing that one if the bar chord is a little bit too hard all right so once you have those chords memorized and you can transition between them pretty easily then let's go ahead and move on to some strumming patterns that you can use with the sauce spping over okay so if you're a beginner the first thing I recommend you do is go through the entire song and just play each chord once on the downbeat and that way you can familiarize yourself with where you need to have those chord transitions so I'll go ahead and give you an example of how this sounds if you put your a minor chord on that's the first chord in the song and you're just going to play them through once on a downstroke all the way through the whole song I thought I've been hurt before but no one's ever left me quite this sore and you would essentially go through the rest of the song just like that so you know where to expect those chord Transitions and once you've done that all the way through then we can move into our first strumming pattern so here it is as you can see it's all downstrokes and what's going to be important in this strumming pattern is the Rhythm so as you can see this whole strumming pattern is all downstrokes and there's eight of of them and the way that we're going to hear the Rhythm is we're going to emphasize certain downstrokes or certain beats of this Rhythm so I'm going to go ahead and highlight the beats that we're going to emphasize and that would be the first the fourth and the seventh and so how it's going to sound is like this 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 and you can see the the way that I'm emphasizing those beats is I'm kind of using my strumming hand I'm just going to give it a little bit more of a force whenever I strum down on it the rest of them are a little bit more muted okay so we have 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 so why don't you guys go ahead and practice that with me put your a minor chord on cuz that's the first chord and we're going to play all downstrokes and we're going to to emphasize the first fourth and seventh downstroke so we have 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 another way I can explain it is whenever I'm emphasizing those beats I'm kind of using my elbow action whenever I'm strumming down but then for the remaining beats that aren't emphasized I'm kind of using my wrist a little bit more than my elbow so I'm just kind of flicking the strings a little bit softer and that will make the difference between the emphasized beats and the not emphasized ones so go ahead and practice that with me one more time we've got 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 all right and once you get that Rhythm down all you have to do is add in the those chord transitions so now we have a minor g c f now you can use this strumming pattern through for the whole song but the places that I like to use it are the second verse and the bridge so that's where I'll be using it in my little cover at the end but one slight thing that I'm going to do different when I use it for the bridge is Dynamics which is how loud or soft you play is going to be a big important role for this song because a lot of times in his original song um the way that everything kind of changes in how dramatic it is is through the Dynamics so for the bridge I like to go from quieter to softer so I'm going to be using the same strumming pattern but I'm going to start out quiet and then get louder as I get towards the end so like this and so you can see when I do it from quiet to loud it kind of negates the emphasized beats that we practiced earlier so now I'm just doing all downstrokes and I'm going from quiet to soft so a minor G C F and you can hear he does this in the bridge need get you out of my head needle in the bed going to wind up dead needle in the thread got to get you out of my head needle in the thread going to wind up de so just something extra you can throw in there to spice it up a little bit if you want to but um that's all I have to show you for the first pattern so now if you want to see the other pattern I used to play through this song I will show it to you now this is it and you can see the whole thing is down up down up down up and so let me go ahead and play this for you so you can hear the Rhythm down up down up down up down up down up down up and you can see after the first down and up I'm stopping the string so that they don't ring so that'll be denoted by this little Aster that you see and that just means you're going to stop your strings with the side of your playing hand okay so let's go a little bit slower and why don't you play that with me I have my a minor chord on we have down up stop down up down up down up stop down up down up so let's work on the Rhythm down up down up down up down up down up okay and again you just want to practice that through and once you get the Rhythm we're going to add back in the chord transitions so now we have a minor G C and again you can use this strumming pattern for the whole song if you want to but I mostly like to use it for the choruses and the pre choruses and so again the difference between the precour and the chorus I'm going to be using the exact same strumming pattern which is this one here but for the precourse I'm going to play it really quietly and then for the course I'm going to play it loudly so I'll show you what a big difference that makes so for the pre-course it would sound like this got a feeling I'm but I know I'll it out if I quit call youve and then when you get to the chorus you would play the same struming pattern but just louder you watch me bed I I'm shaking falling on my knees and now then now without your kisses I'll be needing stitches so you can see it's the exact same pattern I'm just playing one a little bit more quietly and then one a little bit more loudly so let's go ahead and practice that through together if you have your a minor chord on we have down up stop down up down up down up stop down up down up and then again once you get the Rhythm just put in those chord transitions we've got a minor G C F and then once you have the Rhythm down and you can transition between those chords all you got to work on is speeding it up so that you can play it at Tempo you watch me I I'm shaking falling on my KNE and now that I'm without your K Stites don't get discouraged if you can't play it this fast now it is something that will take practice so practice it slowly until you can transition and everything pretty smoothly and then slowly speed it up until you get it at Tempo all right so those are the two strumming patterns I like to use throughout this song but there is one picking pattern that you mostly hear at the beginning that I wanted to go ahead and show you as well so let's get into the picking patternold all right so now let's figure out this picking pattern it's pretty simple because you're going to play the same basic pattern and what I mean by that is with your playing hand these three fingers are always going to play the same strings your pointer finger is going to be picking the D string your middle finger is going to be picking the B string and your ring finger is going to be playing the top E string so if you pick all three of those at the same time it would look like this now of course with your left hand can you want to play the chords that we practiced earlier so go ahead and put your a minor chord on and so now you'll hear whenever you pick those three strings with your a minor chord on it'll sound like this and the only thing that's going to change in this picking pattern that I'm going to show you is what note you're playing with your thumb so your thumb is always going to be playing the base note or the lowest string in the chord so let's go ahead and go through each chord for a minor your thumb is going to be picking the a string okay and meanwhile these three fingers are still going to be playing the top three so all together it's like this okay our next chord would be G so for that one your thumb is going to switch over to the bottom E string but the other three are still going to be on the top three so G would sound like this the next one we have is C C is going to be played like a minor your thumb is going to be picking the a string so it sounds like this and then the last chord we have is our F chord so if you're playing f with a bar your thumb is going to be picking the bottom E string but if you're choosing to do the alternate fingering of f it is going to change a little your thumb is going to play the a string and then instead of having your ring finger play that top E string you're going to leave it out so if you're playing the alternate fingering for f you're only going to be picking with these three fingers okay so it'll be five 3 and two okay so now let's go ahead and learn the pattern if you put your a minor chord down what we're going to do is we're going to kind of alternate between the thumb and then the other three fingers so for a minor we're going to play the fifth string or the a string with just our thumb and then we're going to follow that up by by picking the top three strings with our other three fingers and we're going to play these fingers four times one 2 3 4 okay so we have thumb 1 2 3 4 and I know it sounds a little off so you got to get it in the Rhythm which is an offbeat Rhythm so we've got a minor okay then our next chord is G so our thumb's going to be picking the bottom E string or the sixth string but these three fingers will still stay the same and again we're going to do the same thing we're going to pick our thumb first and then the top three strings and we're going to play those four times 1 2 3 4 and remember you want to get get that Rhythm down with the off beat so we have a minor G okay our next chord is C so again your thumb's going to want to play the a string or the fifth string and then your three fingers is going to follow it up play it four times 2 3 4 C and then the last chord is F so again your thumb's going to play the E string at the bottom and then your three fingers are staying the same play it four times 1 2 3 4 F and then once you get that pattern down you just got to string them together so we've got a minor G C F and if you're hearing that kind of muting I'm doing that just comes naturally because when you place your three fingers back on the three strings it'll mute the strings so you can hear they already mute because I'm putting my fingers back down but the thumb you're going to want to let ring so it'll make that cool sound that you hear in sha Mendes's version all right so now I've zoomed out a bit so you can see both hands and I'm just going to show that to you guys one more time we have a minor g c f and you could use this to play through the whole song if you wanted but I usually just use it for the introduction as well as the first verse I thought that I've been hurt before but no one's ever left me quite this sore all right and that's the whole picking pattern that you hear in the song All right so once you have the chords memorized and you've nailed the strumming and you figured out the picking pattern then all you to do now is put all of those elements together and we can play through the whole song so this is Stitches by Shawn Mendes luck I can't sh falling on my knees and now I thought that I've been hurt before but no one's ever left me quite this sore your words got deeper than a knife now I need someone to Breathe Me Back To Life got a feel I'm going but I know that make it out of life if I quit calling you my lover move on you watch me Brea until I can't breathe I'm shaking falling on my knees and now that I'm without your kisses I'll be needing stitches I'm Tripp over myself I'm a begging you to come out and now that I without without your kisses I'll be needing stitches just like a moth dra to a flame oh you me in I couldn't sense the pain you're bitter heart cold too the touch now I'm going to reap what i s I'm messy and Bre on my own got a feeling that I'm going under but I know that I'll make it out of if I quit calling you my move on you watch me bre until I can't breathe I'm shaking falling on my knees and now out without your kisses I'll be needing ditches I'm tripping over myself I'm a begging you to come out and now that I'm without youres I'll be needing Stites in the got to get you out of my head needle in the bread going to wind up dead needle in the bad got to get you out of my head needle in the bread going to wind up dead needle in the bad got to get you out of my head needle in the dead going to wind up dead needle in the dead got to get you out of my head get you out of my head you watch me breathe until I can't breath I'm shaking falling on a m KN and now that I without your kisses I'll be needing stitches I'm tripping over myself I'm aing begging you to come help and now that I'm without your kisses I'll be needing Stites I'm without your kisses I'll be meing dites without your kisses I'll be needing dites all right thank you guys so much for joining me for another tutorial I really hope that this was able to help you even if it was just a little bit and if you did like it and you did find it helpful then please give it a like down below as well as subscribe to my channel that way you know every single time I upload a new tutorial for you guys so if you're still in the guitar playing mood then please go ahead and check out one of these two playlists I have one is for tutorials that are maybe a little bit more difficult than this one and the other playlist is for easy songs just like this with just a few chords and a few strumming patterns and that's all you got to know and also please feel free to follow me on any of my social media sites where you can contact me with any questions that you have or requests that you have um I always check those and that's where I get my ideas for which tutorials to do next so thanks again for watching I hope this helped and I will see you in my next video bye kisses I'll be need Stites I'll without your kisses bees