Unchained Melody by The Righteous Brothers Tutorial/Lesson
Unchained Melody
C, Am, F, G, G7, Em, C7, Fm
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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 Unchained Melody by the Righteous Brothers on the guitar. And today I am featuring my Zager ZAD-80CE guitar. [music] So, if you like what you see, I will link more information about it down below. Here is 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 you are going to need to know eight different chord shapes to play through this song and we're going to start with our C major, [music] which looks like this and sounds like this. >> [music] >> And by the way, if you don't know how to read these chord charts [music] you're seeing on screen, I do cover how to do that in my free beginner series right here on YouTube. So, make sure to check that out right here. The next chord shape is our A minor. >> [music] >> Next is our first bar chord, our F major. >> [music] >> Then we also have our G major. >> [music] >> From here we have our G7. >> [music] >> Then there's our E minor. We've got [music] our C7. >> [music] >> And then the last chord you need to know is our F minor. >> [music] >> And those are the eight chord shapes you need to know to play through this song. So, go ahead and pause the video and take as much time as you need to really look over these chord shapes, get them memorized, and also practice transitioning back and forth between them cuz it'll make learning the rest of the song so much easier for you. And if this is a skill you're currently struggling with, I do have a practice with me chord transition series right here on my channel where we go through and build the skill up in real time together. So, I'll link that playlist in the corner for those of you who need it. But, once you have these chords under your belt, we can go ahead and talk about the strumming that I would suggest for this song. So, as I always say, if you are brand new to playing guitar or you're somebody who struggles with playing guitar and singing at the same time, the first thing I would suggest doing is to bring up the song and go ahead and go through the entire thing with just a single down strum on each chord change as you sing through the song. And you want to take this time to really get used 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. >> Oh [singing and music] my love, my darling, [singing] I've >> [music] >> hungered for [singing] your touch. >> All right. So, that's just a really quick example, but you would essentially want to do that for the entire song and just really make sure you know where those chords are going to be changing. And this is actually something you can 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 link that in the description box down below. But, once you're comfortable with those chord transitions, we can go ahead and add to this single down strum to create more of a full strumming pattern you can use for this song. All right, guys. So, for today's strumming pattern, we are going to be counting this in a triplet rhythm. So, basically, what that means is we're going to have four beats in a measure, but each of those beats is going to be further subdivided into three sub beats, okay? So, it's going to sound like this. We've got one and a two and a three and a four and a one and a two and a three and a four and a one a two and [music] a three a four and a down down up down up >> [music] >> All right. So, pretty straightforward. It should be fairly intuitive because it does kind of match that kind of waltzy feel of the song. So, basically, what we're going to do is we're going to play through this strum pattern one time per chord for most of the song. Now, when we get to the bridge, there are going to be parts where we're going to actually split this measure in half because we're going to play two different chords within a measure, but I'll cover that in a second. First of all, let's go ahead and take a look at this first verse. We're starting here on our C major chord, and essentially all you want to do is play through this entire strumming pattern one time on C. So, we've got down down up [singing and music] down up down down up down up. Next chord, A minor. Down down up down [singing and music] up down down up down up. Then we've got our F major. Down up down >> [singing and music] >> up down down up down up. And then our G. Down down up down [music] up down [singing] down up down up. All right. So, we do want to speed that up just a little bit to get it more at full tempo. So, let's speed it up and string all of those chords together, and that'll sound like this. We've got one and a two and a three and a four and a one and a two and a three and a four and a minor. >> [singing and music] >> Down down up down up F. Full measures [music] for all of these. Oh >> [singing] >> my love. My darling. I've hungered >> [music] >> for your touch. A long long time. >> [singing] >> A [music] long time. All right. So, we're ending there on our G7 for the verses, and all of the verses are going to follow this exact same structure. When we get to the chorus, you can again use the same strumming pattern for the chorus. The only thing that's going to be a little bit different is the chord order, okay? We've got down down up down up down down up down up. G. A minor >> [music] >> E minor >> [music] >> F G >> [music] >> to C, all right? And that's how you can play all of the choruses [singing] in this song. I need your love. >> [music] >> I >> [singing] >> need [music] your love. Godspeed [singing] >> [music] >> to me. >> [music] >> All right, then we're going to end on our C7 for the chorus. >> [music] >> And that's going to lead into the bridge. Now, when we get to the bridge, this is where I was talking about where we're going to actually have to split this strumming pattern in half. So, I'm going to go ahead and add a little vertical line here in the middle. And what this represents is just where we're going to change chords. So, if you're looking at the guide that's on my Patreon page, you might notice some of these chords, like the F and the G, they've got these little dash marks next to them. That's just my way of signaling to you guys that we are going to be splitting the measure. So, in terms of our strumming pattern, what that means is we're going to put our F chord down and we're going to play that for the left half or the first half of the pattern. So, we've got F on down, down, up, down, up. We're going to change [music] chords right here in the middle to our G chord and finish out the right half of the pattern. Down, down, up, Okay? So, we're just switching chords a little bit faster, that's all. Okay, so you have F down, down, up, down, up G to F to E >> [music] >> F, to G, C, >> [music] >> C 7. All right? And that's the bridge there. >> [music] [singing] >> And [music] then again, you repeat that same thing for the rest of the bridge. >> [singing] >> We're going to end here on a C for a full measure. Wait for me. [singing] All [music] right? And then the rest of the verses all the way to the outro, we're going to play them exactly the same. Again, in the very last part of the song in the outro, we are going to have another split measure from our F to our F minor. Okay. [music] So, that outro goes C for a full measure, A minor [music] full measure, F for half, [singing] F minor for half, and then a single down strum C. All right? And anytime on the guide you see these little starred notes, that's just again my way of signaling to you guys that I would just just a single down strum. And uh basically, that is my suggestion of how you can strum through this song. Now, you could totally take this strumming pattern and play it through the entire song right now. However, I think a more sweet way to play the song would be with finger picking, and it is a lot more reminiscent to the actual song. So, let's go ahead and talk about how we can finger [music] pick this song next. All right, guys. So, again, go ahead and pause the video and take as much time as need to really look over this strumming rhythm. It is fairly straightforward. However, triplet counting might be something that's new to you. So, if If is, just make sure to pause the video and take as much time as you need to really internalize that rhythm so that you can develop some muscle memory. Therefore, you can play through this song and then sing on top of it because you're not thinking about the strumming as much anymore. Um, but once you have the strumming under your belt, like I said, I wanted to teach you guys a super sweet little finger picking pattern that you can do for this song. So, let's go ahead and dive into that next. All right, guys, so for our finger picking pattern today, it is going to be pretty straightforward. We're just doing an arpeggiated picking pattern. Um, but before we dive into it, I wanted to go over just a couple of rules. First of all, I am going to be numbering my strings here. So, this low E string is going to be six and it's going to go 5 4 3 2 1 all the way to that bottom thinnest high E string. So, for the rest of this part of the tutorial, I will be referring to these strings as their number. And then, let's talk about what to do with our hands. Your left hand, nothing's changing. You're still going to be holding down all of these different chord shapes that we've been practicing throughout the song. But with our right hand, what I want you to do is drop your pick and instead, we're going to use our fingers to finger pick the strings to play through this song. So now, with our right hand, we do need to assign some of our fingers to some of these strings. So, what I want you to do is take your index, your middle, and your ring finger, and those three fingers are going to live here on the bottom three strings, the G, the [music] B, and the E, okay? So, throughout this part of the tutorial, we're not going to be moving our three fingers from those three strings. The only finger that should be moving is going to be your thumb. Your thumb is going to cover our base note of each chord, which will be either the sixth, the fifth, or the fourth string, okay? So, your thumb's going to be the only thing moving. Now that we have all of those rules covered, let's go ahead and break down the strumming pattern. Let's start with our C major chord since that's the first chord in the song. What I want you to do is we're going to place our thumb on the base-most or root note of the chord. So, for C major, that's going to be our A string, our fifth string. >> [music] >> Okay? So, your thumb's going to pick that fifth string, and then you're going to go down your guitar. So, you're going to go five, three, >> [music] >> two, one. Your fingers are going to be thumb, pointer, middle, [music] ring. Okay? So, you're going to go down the guitar and then when you get to that lowest E string, you're going to go back up with your middle finger on string two >> [music] >> and your index finger on string three. Okay? So, the whole pattern goes like this. We've got five, three, two, one, [music] two, three. All right, it's following that same triplet rhythm that we learned earlier with the strumming. One and uh [music and singing] two and uh All right. So, just like with the strumming, in order to do a full measure, we will repeat this pattern twice. So, for C major, we've got five, three, two, [singing and music] one, two, three. Again, three, two, one, two, All right. Again, finger picking is something that if you're brand new to guitar, it can take quite a while to get the coordination down and you know, being able to use your fingers to finger pick each string like this. So, make sure you just pause and give yourself plenty of time. Um but, basically, this pattern is going to be the same for each chord, okay? So, now let's go ahead and go through all our other chords. Our A minor chord is next. The lowest string that we play in our A minor is still our fifth string. So, we're going to keep our thumb where we are and we go five, three, two, one, two, >> [music] >> three. All right, same exact pattern. Twice. >> [music] >> The next chord in the song is going to be our F major. Now, this is the first time our thumb is going to move because our lowest string in our F major is our low E string, our sixth string. So, your thumb's going to go up a string. Other than that, the pattern's the same. So, we've got six, three, two, one, two, three. [music] All All right, twice. >> [music] >> And then from there we're going to our G major. G major again, your thumb's staying on that low sixth string. >> [music] >> Same pattern. >> [music] >> All right, and that's the verses already there. We just want to speed it up a little, so at full tempo it would sound like this. We've got one and a two and a three and a four and a Woah, [singing] my love. [music] My [singing] darling. I've hungered >> [music] >> for your touch a long >> [singing and music] >> long time. Let's go ahead and go through the rest of the chords on our G7. That's going to look just like your G chord. We're going to go 6, [music] 3, 2, 1, 2, 3. Okay? Um as we go through the song, you'll see we'll use this with our E minor. E minor looks the same as the other G and F chords. We've got 6, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3. Okay? And then our C7 is going to look just like our C chord. 5, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3. And then the last chord we're going to need is our F minor and that's going to look like our F. We've got 6, 3, [music] 2, >> [singing] >> 1, 2, 3. Okay? So those are all of the different chords that you'll encounter in this song and the pattern that you'll need to finger pick them. So now that we know all that, let's go ahead and put it together and go through the rest of the different parts of the song. Uh we just went through To let's go ahead and go through an example of a chorus. We're starting here on our C again. We've got one and a two and a three and a four and a >> Need your love. I need your love. [music and singing] Godspeed [music] your love to >> [singing] >> me. >> C7 All [music] right. Now we're in the bridge again. So, just like with the strumming, when we get to the bridge, we are going to have these dashed chords, which means we're doing a half measure. So, all that means with our picking pattern is you're just going to play through the picking pattern one time instead of two times for each of these chords. So, on our F chord, we've got 6 [music] 3 2 1 2 3, and then straight into your G chord, 6 3 2 [music] 1 2 3. Okay? So, the bridge will sound like this. We've got F to G [music] back to F D minor. Okay. Each of these just gets that [music] one like half measure, okay? All right. So, speeding it up just a little and adding some singing, it'll sound like this. We've got one and a two and a three and a four and a >> [music] >> All >> [music and singing] >> the rivers flow to the sea, to >> [singing] >> the open arms of the sea. >> [music] >> Yeah. All right. Second half of the bridge, same thing. Lonely riverside, [singing] wait for me, [music] wait for me. I'll be [singing and music] coming home. Then we're going to hold C for a whole measure, which means we're doing the pattern twice. Wait for me. All [music] right. So, what I like to do when I do my cover of this song is I will do finger picking throughout the entire song, all the way up to the end of the bridge where we just played, and from that point on, I like to switch into strumming to the end of the song. That's just my suggestion of how I like to play this song because that's where all of the instruments come in at the end and it gets a lot louder, so I think switching to strumming there really kind of emulates that. However, you could totally finger [music] pick through this entire song, just like you can strum through it, so that preference is up to you. All right, guys. So, again, go ahead and pause the video and take as much time as you need to look over this picking [music] pattern. Finger picking, like I said earlier, can be a really daunting thing for a lot of beginners because it does [music] take quite a bit of coordination, but I promise you if you take it slowly and really give yourself a lot of patience [music] and time to get used to it. Once you get used to it, you can apply these finger picking patterns to so many other songs. So, I really encourage you to give that your best shot. Once you have that under your belt, well, you can go ahead and put everything we've learned in this tutorial together to play through the song. One and a two and a three and a four. Woah, [singing and music] my love. >> [music] >> My darling. [singing] I've hungered for [singing and music] your touch. A long lonely time. Want to have fun jamming 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 fast track and play along guitar tutorials. [music] I'll make sure to leave a link for it 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. [music] So, I'll see you over there. Bye.