Used to be Young
C, Cmaj7, Gadd4, G6, Am, Asus2, F/C, F/Cb5, E, E7, Am7, F, 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 Miley's brand new song Used to Be Young on the guitar 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 and guys just a quick disclaimer as of filming this right now this song has only been out for just a few hours so I found a really pretty way that you can play this it does include a lot of chords but just realize they are variations of each other and I think it sounds really close to Miley's original song so I'm just gonna present this tutorial in the way that I think sounds really good but as of right now I wasn't able to check my chords or anything against the internet so just take that for what it's worth um but anyways let's go ahead and jump into it alright guys so I actually have 13 chord shapes to show you today but before you start freaking out about that number just realize a lot of them are variations of the same chord so it's really not as hard as it might sound so let's go ahead and start with our first chord which is 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 to check that out so this is our C major if you lift up your pointer finger this is our next chord which is C Major seven the next chord is our G add four and then again if you remove your pointer finger this is our G6 the next chord is our a minor again if you remove your pointer finger that's a suspended two next is our F over c chord and then again if you take off your pointer finger I actually don't know what this chord shape is called I tried looking it up on Google and the closest I could find was F over C flat five but it's placed like this and I know that doesn't sound too pretty out of context but I promise when we put all these chords together you'll kind of hear how it sounds like Miley song um the next chord is our E major if you remove your ring finger that's our E7 then we have our a minor seven RF bar and then again if you remove your middle finger this is our F minor foreign chord shapes to play through this song so go ahead and pause the video and take as much time as you need to really memorize all of these chord shapes as well as practice transitioning back and forth between them because it will make learning the rest of the song so much easier for you and if this is a skill that you're currently working on I would suggest checking out my practice with me Series where we go through this skill in real time together but once you have all of that down we can talk a little bit about the strumming so anyone familiar with my tutorials will know that I always start you guys off with a practice pattern and this is just for people who are beginners at playing the guitar or you struggle with singing and playing at the same time so what I would suggest doing is to bring up the song and play through every chord with a single down strum as you sing through the song and just take a mental note of whatever word or syllable you're singing whenever those chords are transitioning so here's a quick example of what the verse would look like you I don't dress the same me and who you say I was yesterday have gone our separate ways all right and basically you would want to do that for the entire song and just take the time to really know where those chord transitions are gonna happen and this is 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 for you guys but once you've done that we can talk about more of a full strumming pattern that you can use for this song Alright guys so my suggestion for strumming as you can see is down down up down down down up so let's go ahead and zoom in and talk a little bit about this Rhythm alright guys so we are going to be in a 16th note rhythm today so if you don't know what that means or how to count that I would suggest checking out my beginners course because we do go over that there but basically in our 16th note pattern we have one E and A two e and a three e and a four E and A one E and A two e and a three e and a four E and A down down up all right and basically you want to play this pattern through one time for every chord um but I am going to split this pattern down the middle so you'll see this vertical line here and that just represents where we're going to change chords so you're not going to play the full strumming pattern for each um chord you're going to split it between two chords so basically if we look at verse one we have a c to C Major seven so what you would do is play the C on the first two down strums then switch to your variation your C Major seven and finish out the pattern all right so the whole thing is down up up down down and then same thing with the next chord pairing we have G add four down down to G6 up up down down up a minor a suspended to F over C foreign right and that would apply for all of the verses so one time three without stopping sounds like this bullet so basically that would work for all of the verses so now let's go ahead and take a look at the chorus because it's going to be a little bit different with our chords here hey in addition to the printable guide we've been looking at did you know I also offer customizable backing tracks polls 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 it makes a huge difference so thanks so much and let's get back and do it so we're starting with our C major down down to C Major seven up up down up to our E chord to our E7 then we go to our a minor to a minor seven s chord to F minor so you can see this entire song the strumming pattern is going to be split with the chord the main chord and the variation of that chord like C to C Major seven you know e to E7 so it's very good much going to follow that pattern for the entire song so one time through the course without stopping would sound like this foreign and change all right and so basically if you take this pattern you could apply it for the entire song and I think it sounds really good especially if you add in those variations at that vertical line I think it really brings together the entire song all right guys so go ahead and pause the video and take as much time as you need to really internalize this strumming pattern and practice that chord transition in between in the middle and everything like that once you have it under your belt then it'll be so much easier to sing on top of it so yeah once we get back we can put everything we've learned together to play through the song one two ready go foreign Wanna 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 Fast Track and play along 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 and feel but it's just as fun and easy to play so I'll see you over there bye