The Scientist by Coldplay Tutorial/Lesson
The Scientist
Bm7, G, D, Dsus2, A/D, D6/9, A, Dmaj7
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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 The Scientist by Coldplay on the guitar this song was requested and voted on by my patrons over my patreon page as this month's Patron pick winner so if you want a little bit of voting power in the songs You See Me teacher on my channel make sure to check it out I will link it down below 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 all right guys so to play through the song you are going to need to know eight different chord shapes and we're going to start with our B minor 7 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 my free beginner Series right here on YouTube so make sure to check that out right here the next chord shape is our G major we also have our D major from here we go to our D suspended two where you just take off your middle finger from here we have our a over D chord where you just put your middle finger right under your first finger and then from here we have our D6 over9 where you just take off your middle finger after that we have our a major chord and then the last chord shape is our D major 7 and those are the only eight chords you need to know to play through this song all right guys 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 them cuz it'll 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 where we go through this skill and build it up in real time together so I'll make sure to link that in the corner for those of you who need it but once you have those chords under your belt then we can go ahead and talk about the strumming pattern that I would recommend for this song all right guys so as I always say if you are brand new to playing guitar or you're somebody who struggles with playing guitar while singing at the same time the first thing I would suggest doing is to bring up the song and go ahead and play through the entire thing with a single down strum as you sing through the song and you want to take this time to really just get used to to what word or what syllable you're on whenever those chords are changing so here's a quick example of what that would look like come up to meet you tell you I'm sorry you don't know how lovely you are all right so that's just a really quick example but you would essentially want to do that for the entire song and really just make sure you know where those chords are going to be 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 know where to expect those chord changes then we can go ahead and add to the single down strum to create more of a full strumming Rhythm that you can use for this song all right guys so the strumming pattern I would recommend for this song is pretty simple as you can see it's just all down strums with an up strum at the end it's going to be counted in a 16th note pattern so it's going to go like this we have 1 and two and three and four and 1 and two and three and four and a 1 and 2 and three and four and a down down down down down up down down down down up all right so it's pretty simple and basically what we're going to do is apply this pattern one time through per chord throughout the song so let's go ahead and take a look at that intro as an example we're starting here on our B minor 7 chord you're going to play this pattern through one time through so we have 1 and two and three and four and uh to our G chord 1 and 2 and three and four and uh to D suspended two all right and most of the verses is just those chords in that order with this strumming pattern so you've already got most of it down um so without stopping it would sound like this now one thing you might want to add in to kind of dress it up a little is on this G chord um as you can hear through the song it'll go like 1 and 2 and 3 and four and so what I'm doing there is I'm taking my pinky finger and I'm reaching it up to the fifth fret here relative to the Capo on the high E string and if you want to add that in just on the end of the four when you're strumming it'll kind of do that lead in into the D chord so we have B 7 1 and 2 and 3 and four and uh to our g 1 and 2 and three and four add your pinky and and then here I would just ignore the upstrom so we have g 1 and 2 and 3 and four and to d 1 and 2 and 3 and four and a d size so you can kind of hear how mimics the piano line if you do that so one time through with that little added note sounds like this all right so just something optional you can do if you want to add that in I do think it sounds closer to the original song that way so that's something that I like to do in my cover but like I said totally optional um so this triing pattern you can apply for the entire song the only place it's going to be a little bit different is some parts of the song where we want to split the pattern in half so one place that you'll see this is in the chorus on this line no one ever said it would be this hard we're doing a little bit of a walk down there we're going from our D major to our a over D to our D6 over9 to our a so here we are going to have to split the measure between the a over D and the D6 over9 so basically on our D chord we're doing that for a full measure 1 and 2 and three and four and uh to our a over D we're going to do just half the measure here so we have one and two and then take off your middle finger to the d69 and we have three and four and a okay so D is 1 and 2 and 3 and four and a over d 1 and 2 and D6 over 9 3 and 4 and uh to our a all right so um the other thing I wanted to quickly add in here too is kind of like on our G chord where we added that pinky you can do the same thing here on our a chord if you add your pinky here on the third fret relative to the Capo of your B string you're going to make an a suspended four chord so just like the Rhythm with the G I would recommend adding that pinky on the end of the four so on our a chord we have 1 and 2 and 3 and four add your pinky a suus and and then go back to a so this line is the only one that's a little bit more tricky than the rest of them so let me go ahead and play through the whole thing for you so you can hear how that sounds all right with some singing no one ever said it would be this song take me back to the star all right so that's how that part would go um like I said that's one of the only tricky lines the other place where you do want to split this rhythm in half is going to be during those little instrumental breaks so let me go ahead and show you that part we've got our D full pattern here G we can add that pinky if you want to our D and then here you can see we're going to split the measure between D and D major 7 so again we're splitting it right down the middle on our D we have 1 and 2 and to our D major 7 3 and four and a okay so that whole little instrumental break line line sounds like this all right um and then you'll see that kind of in the Middle with the break as well as in the outro section um but those are the only places where you want to split the strumming Rhythm the rest of the song is going to get a full pattern through for every chord um but yeah that is the strumming Rhythm that I would recommend playing for this song all right guys so again go ahead and pause the video and take as much time as you need to really get some of this muscle memory down to be able to play this strumming pattern this is a pretty common strumming Rhythm for a lot of different songs so the sooner you can get that under your muscle memory the better because then you can play through so many other songs that use it but once you have the strumming Rhythm under your belt you can actually stop there and play through the song but I actually wanted to show you an optional picking pattern that you could use the intro of this song actually has a very beautiful piano Melody and there's a way that you can kind of mimic that on the guitar so if if you're interested let's go ahead and talk about the picking pattern that I would recommend for this song all right guys so like I said this picking pattern is totally optional but if you do want to try it out I think it does sound really pretty with this song before we begin I do need to mention two different things one is that I do like to number my guitar strings when I talk about picking so you can see here the low E is six it goes 54321 all the way to the high thinnest E string um so I will be referring to these strings as numbers throughout this section of the tutorial and then the other thing I want to talk about is your right hand that you're going to be picking taking your strings with basically what I want you to do is take your pointer middle and ring finger and you're going to assign these three fingers to the bottom three strings the g b and e okay and they're going to stay there throughout this picking pattern but your thumb is going to move around because it's going to be covering the base note in every chord so for example B minor 7 it's going to be on the a string whereas on the G chord it's going to be on the sixth string the E string okay so the thumb is the only thing that should be moving the other three fingers should kind of be anchored here on the bottom three strings so now that that's covered let's go ahead and talk about how to do this picking pattern basically what I would recommend is we're going to do kind of a back and forth for this picking pattern like you hear on the piano so let's put our B minor 7 chord down what I would recommend is starting with your bottom three fingers and then going to your base string which on our B minor 7 is our a string the fifth string and you're going to go back and forth between them all right and you do that for every beat so we have one and two and three and four and all right and we're going to may make that exact same pattern for the rest of the chords as well so on our G chord we've got our bottom three and then the base remember is our sixth string now and then same thing back and forth 1 and 2 and three and four and to your D chord now your thumbs on the fourth string D suspended same thing all right so pretty simple once you get the hang of it so all together without stopping it'll sound like this all right and so for the verse those are the only four chords you need to know on our CH it's going to be play the exact same way except for that one line like I said that's a little bit different let's go over that now you're going to start here on your D chord we have one and 2 and 3 and four and to your a over d 1 and 2 and remember we're splitting this just like we did with our strumming B6 over9 3 and four and then when you get to your a chord full pattern 1 and 2 and three and four and and for the a chord we're just doing our thumb on the fifth string there um so the picking pattern is pretty straightforward once you get used to like you know being able to control each finger by itself now one thing I did want to go over really quick is those little addin pinky notes so on our G where I would recommend doing that for the picking pattern is we have 1 and two and and three and four here on the end of the four again you're just going to pick just this note so I'm doing that with my ring finger um so You' go like this 1 and 2 and 3 and four and then go to your D okay so that whole first intro line would sound like this with that little added pinky note all right and then if you want to add in that little a suspended pinky note for that line that's in the chorus it would go like this all right so what I'm doing there is again on the end of the four I'm just picking this note so on our a we have 1 and two and three and four and and then strum like a single strum no one ever said it would be this hard take me back back to the star all right um so yeah for picking that's what I would recommend if you want to do that for the intro all the way through the end of the first chorus that's what I would recommend and then at that point I would go into strumming if you want to make it sound more like the original song um but yeah that's how I would recommend doing picking for the song all right guys so again go ahead and pause the video and take as much time as you need to really get the coordination down of how to do this picking pattern if you can do it and add it into your cover I do think it sounds really reminiscent to the original piano version at the beginning and it sounds just really pretty so definitely give it a try if you want to but once you've mastered that then we can go ahead and put everything we've learned in this tutorial together to play through the song One 2 ready go come up to meet you tell you I'm sorry you don't know how lovely you are Want to Have Fun Jimmy out 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 FastTrack and playalong guitar tutorials I'll make sure to leave that 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 and feel but it's just as fun and easy to play so I'll see you over there bye