Stranger by Olivia Rodrigo Tutorial/Lesson
Stranger
C, Am, F/C, Gadd4, G7
Download Printable Guitar Guide
Unlock with Patreon
Watch play along cover
Unlock with Patreon
Are you new to playing the guitar? Watch my free Beginner Series where I show you all of the basics. You'll be playing your first songs in minutes!
Video transcript
hey everyone my name is Ellen and today I'm going to be showing you guys how to play Stranger by Olivia Rodrigo on my journey instruments collapsible of 422 guitar so if you're interested in this model I will link more information about it down below um here's a quick overview of everything I'll be covering in this video today and with that being said let's go ahead and get started all right guys so you only need to know five different chords to play through this song and we're going to start with our C 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 free beginner course right here on YouTube so make sure check that out the next chord is our a minor after that we have our F over C then we have our G add four and then last is our G7 where you just move your pointer finger down a string and by the way this G7 is kind of optional so if this is a hard position for you to get to you can just replace the G7 with your Gad 4 throughout the song and then another piece of advice is for the first three chords C a minor and F over C I would recommend taking your thumb and kind of wrapping it over the neck of your guitar and lightly touching that low E string just to mute it that way you can strum the rest of the chords without sounding out that low E okay but those are the only five chords you need to know to play this song so go ahead and pause the video and take as much time as you need to really memorize those chord shapes as well as practice transitioning back and forth between the chords cuz it will make learning the rest of the song so much easier and if this is a skill you're currently struggling with I do have an entire practice with me playlist right here on YouTube so I will make sure to link that in the corner here um but once you have those chords ready to go we can go ahead and talk about the strumming that you can use for this song all right guys so like I always say if you are a beginner at guitar or you struggle to sing while playing the first thing I would suggest doing is to bring up the song and go ahead and play through it with a single down strum on every chord change as you sing through the song and take this time to really get used to what word you're singing and things like that whenever those chords are changing so here's a quick example of what that would look like cause I was half myself without you now I feel so complete I can't even remember what made me lose all thatle all right so you would basically want to do that for the entire song and just take a mental note of what word you're singing whenever those chords are changing and this actually something you do right now if you check out my patreon page I do have this entire guide available to download and print out so I'll make sure to leave that link in the description box but once you get that down we can talk about more of the full strumming pattern that you can use for this song all right guys so for this first strumming pattern this will be the main pattern that you can use throughout most of the song It's a simple eighth note count but we do have to play it pretty quickly in order to be at Tempo so it's going to count like this we have 1 and 2 and 3 and four and one and 2 and three and four and down down up down up all right so it's pretty quick and for most of the verses you're going to repeat this pattern four times per chord and then for most of the chorus you're going to repeat this pattern twice per chord although there are a few places where that's not true but I will explain that in a second so if we go ahead and look at the first verse we're starting on our c chord you would want to play this pattern four times for the C chord down down up down down up down up three four then you go to your a minor four times twice three times four times then we have F over c 1 2 3 4 and then here we're going to go from our G add four to our G7 so each of these G chords is going to only get twice for this pattern so G add four is down down up down up twice then you go to your G7 down down up down up twice all right and that's basically one round of how you can play through the verse I woke up this morning and I sat up straight in bed I had the strangest feeling of this spit off of my chest I hadn't felt that hopeful sense the day that you left and it felt nice so nice all right and basically you would repeat that for all of the verses and they would sound the same now the one place that's going to be a little bit different is the chorus so let's go ahead and bring that up for here we're going from our c chord and we're going to play the pattern twice 1 2 then we're going to go to our F over C and play it just once back to C all right cuz I was half myself without you now I feel so complete can't even remember what made me lose all that all right so that's how the chorus goes um towards the end when she sings the main line you're just a stranger I know everything about so here's going to be a little bit different the C and the g add four is going to get one time through and then the F over C is going to be repeated twice and then the second time through is the same we have C and G had four one time through and then C is going to be repeated twice so you're just a stranger I know everything about who you're just a stranger I know everything about all right and that's basically how you would play through the entire song with this strumming pattern the other strumming pattern that I want to show you is only applicable if you want to do kind of a walkdown which you can hear in the song so let's go ahead and talk about strumming pattern to hey really quick in addition to the printable guide we've been looking at did you know I also offer customizable backing tracks TOS for What songs you want to learn next and even video chats if you're having trouble you can unlock all these perks and more if you become a patron which helps me grow my channel and make more videos just like this one or if patreon's not your thing you can still help me out a lot by giving me a thumbs up and leaving a comment below to help me reach more people in YouTube's recommendations it only takes a second but makes a huge difference so thanks so much and let's get back into it all right guys so for the second strpping pattern it's going to look really similar to the first one and we're still in a simple eighth note pattern we're going to go 1 and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and down down up down down up down down up all right um but I'm going to go ahead and put a little vertical line here in the middle and basically this means we're going to change chords in the middle of this pattern and like I said earlier we're only going to use this pattern when we do the walk down during the verses so here in verse two we're starting with our first pattern on C down down up down up twice three and then here on the fourth time we're going to do this walk down to the Gad four so that's where we're using strumming pattern too C gets down down up and then G add four gets down down up and then you get into your a minor and same thing back to strumming pattern one down down up down up down down up down up three times and then here on the fourth time we go a minor down up to G4 down down up to f over C all right so let's go ahead and put that in context with the singing of coffee and I poured myself of cup thought of all good things I did to try and your love how did that happen okay so basically if you want to include the walk down during the verses that's how you would use strumming pattern 2 to accomplish that otherwise you could totally just ignore the G add for walk downs and just keep strumming pattern one for the entire song all right guys so again go ahead and pause the video and take as much time as you need to really get that strumming pattern under your belt although the strumming is pretty simple I think playing it fast enough to match the original tempo of the song is the more difficult part so definitely take your time and get it up to speed um but once you have these strumming patterns down then we can go ahead and put together everything we've learned to play through the song 1 2 3 4 1 2 ready go I woke up this morning and I sat it straight in bed I had the strangest feeling of this laid off of my chest I haven't felt that hopeful since the day that you left Want to 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 FastTrack and play long 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 super similar Vibe but it's just as fun to play so I'll see you over there bye