Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus Tutorial/Lesson
Wrecking Ball
Am, C, Em, Dm, F
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Video transcript
we CL we CH our heart hi my name is Ellen and today I'm going to be showing you guys how to play Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus on the guitar so stay tuned if this is something that you'd like to learn so I'm going to show you guys two different versions of how you can play this song one is without a capo so this is great for all of you who don't have a capo it does require a couple of bar chords like f and B flat but I have a tutorial over here that shows you how to practice bar chords so that you can get them sounding good without the buzzing going on and um the other version is with a capo but the cords are a little bit easier so um go ahead and pick which one you'd like to do and I'll show you both so go ahead and Skip to this time if you want to learn the version that doesn't require a capo but has a couple of bar cords and um go ahead stay tuned if you'd like to learn the version that does have a capo but has a little bit easier cord so for the cap version you're going to need to have your cap on the fifth fret so 1 2 3 four five and you need to know five different chords and I'll go ahead and show you guys what those look like so to play the version of this song with your Capo on the fifth fret you need to know five chords and the first chord is a minor which looks like this and sounds like this and remember the x is mean not to play that string so for this one we're not going to be playing this low E string after a minor you need to know C so all you have to do for that is take your ring finger and move it up one string and one fret so this is C and it looks like this and it sounds like this after C you need to know E minor which looks like this and sounds like this then you need to know D Minor which looks like this and sounds like this so remember for this chord we're not going to be playing the low E or the low a and then the last chord you need to know is f and this is a B chord but it is one of the most common bar chords you'll see in songs so it's good to get used to knowing how to do it now it looks like this and it sounds like this so why don't you go ahead and pause the video and practice through those chords a couple of times until you have them memorized and then um go ahead and continue and I'll show you a couple of different strumming and picking patterns that I think sound really great with this all you ever did was let be a c like a r so the first drumming pattern I have to show you is the simplest and all you're going to do is go through the entire song and play each chord one time we clawed we chained our hearts in vain we jumped never asking why we kissed I fell under your spell of love no one could deny and this will be a great way to practice kind of where those core transitions are as well as just get used to the tuning of all of the chords with your singing so after you've gone through the whole song and played each chord once on the beat you can go ahead and move on to the second strumming pattern which is down down down up and you're going to play this entire pattern through for every single chord down down up down down down up down down down up we clawed we chained our hearts in vain we jumped never asking why we kissed I fell under your spell love no one could and of course that pattern can be applied through the chorus and the precour and even the bridge if you want it to now the third strumming pattern I have for you is kind of a faster strumming pattern I think this sounds really accurate to the beginning of the song So what you're going to do is for each chord you're going to play every eighth note and that gives you a total of eight times so for example 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 and you can play those all just as downstrokes but of course it sounds a little bit echoey when you do it this way so a great way to give it a little more flavor is to add in a couple of stressed beads so what I mean mean by that is we're going to break these eight notes up into two groups of three and then one group of two so instead of saying 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 you're going to give emphasis on the beginning of each group 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 another way you can think of this is counting in groups of three and then two 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 1 2 3 1 two and in that case you're going to be emphasizing every first beat every one so um let's go ahead and do an example of that 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 of course will be easier if you play with a guitar pick but um the way I like to play this song is actually more with picking patterns so that's why I'm using my thumb but um let's go ahead and put that all together and see what it sounds like when we change the chords we clawed we changed our hearts in pain we jumped never asking why we kissed I fell under your spell of love no one could den and also if you don't like it to be ringing as much what I'm doing is I'm taking the side of my hand my palm and I'm just kind of resting it down here so um it kind of mutes the strings a little bit when you play and it would work the same way if you were using a pick so those are all the strumming patterns I have to show you guys you can pick between any of those three or of course you can always make up your own that you feel comfortable with um also a fun way to spice up any song is to do some variation so you can choose between um strumming patterns 1 two and three and kind of like mix them up I just CL my eyes and me crouching in a BL all youever so now to go ahead and move into some picking patterns that I've come up with for you guys um the first picking pattern is going to be the same Rhythm as the last strumming pattern we learned the one with all the eighth notes but instead of strumming each of them we're going to be picking so for this song I figured out that if you play only the four middle strings of your guitar you can play all of the chords and it sounds fine so what you're going to do is put your thumb on the fifth lowest string your pointer finger on the fourth your middle finger on the third and then your ring finger on the fourth so when you pluck all of these together they have that kind of sound and so no matter what chord you're playing it still sounds fine so you never have to change your right hand and what we're going to be doing is we're going to be picking the eighth notes just like we were earlier and a couple of things to keep in mind is um right now I'm using my pinky kind of as a balance I guess so that my other fingers can pluck without having to fall off the string each time so if you just lay your pinky right here it'll help kind of like stabilize your hand while you play the other thing is to keep in mind that you can also apply the same stressed Rhythm that we did earlier the 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 or if you like this way of counting better 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 so for this G picking pattern it's just like the last strumming pattern you're going to play all the eight eighth notes for every chord we cled we chained our hearts in vain we jumped never asking why we kissed I fell under your spell of love no one could deny so the second picking pattern I have I kind of made it with the bridge more in mind so the the bridge of the song is where the mood kind of changes so I wanted to make that part of the song completely different from the rest of it so by doing that I came up with this picking pattern so the way I'm playing that is with your thumb you're going to be wanting to pick the very lowest string in each chord so for example it starts with f the lowest string in F is our last sixth string so with your thumb you're going to pick the last six string and then you're going to use these three fingers your pointer middle and ring to play your top three strings 3 2 1 6 3 2 1 sorry I'm not barring it correctly 6 3 2 1 so similarly when you move to a minor you're going to be clicking your bottom string with your thumb which in this case would be the fifth string but these three fingers will stay the same on the top three strings 3 2 1 so this would be 5 3 2 1 5 3 2 1 okay then you move to C and the lowest string in C is also the fifth string so that'll be just like a minor 5 3 2 1 5 3 2 1 and then the last chord you need to know for the bridge is E minor so this one's going to be like f the lowest string is the sixth so this will be 6 3 2 1 6 3 2 1 so for each of these chords you're going to want to play that picking pattern through twice so f a minor a minor c e minor so an example of the bridge would sound like this I never me to start a war I just wanted you to let me in and instead of using Force I guess I should have let you in I never meant to start a war I just wanted you to let me in I guess I should have let you in and a couple of things to keep in mind for the bridge is on the last E minor right before you go back into the precourse I think it sounds better when you just play the pattern once and then just kind of let it ring while you finish your singing and then go back into the precourse so another fun way to dress up just the bridge would be after you play your pattern 6 3 2 1 you want to go back up the guitar so 6 3 2 1 6 3 2 1 2 3 5 6 3 2 1 6 3 2 1 2 3 5 and then same thing with a minor 5 3 2 1 5 3 2 1 2 3 5 C 5 3 2 1 5 3 2 1 2 35 and then E minor 6 3 2 1 6 3 2 1 2 35 so I think that just sounds kind of cool when you play it along with the bridge so let's go ahead and do an example of what that sounds like I never meant to start a war I just wanted you to let me in and instead of using Force I guess I should should have let you in I never meant to start a war I just wanted you to let me in I guess I should have let you in and keep in mind for all these picking patterns I am keeping my pinky right here just to stabilize my right hand I never me to start a war I just wanted you play through this song together I just kind of want to overview what I'm going to be playing in my tutorial so for the introduction and all of the verses as well as most of the preuses I'm going to be doing the strumming three pattern or the picking one pattern and that's going to be the eighth note pattern for all of the choruses I'm going to revert to the strumming two pattern and that's the one that sounded like this for the bridge of course I'm going to be using my fancy picking pattern and then on the very last pre chorus right before she goes into the chorus the very last time I think it sounds great if you just strum through it once to kind of build up the tension right before you go to the last chorus you ever say I just walked I will always and then um that also applies to the very end of the song yeah you w me if you just strum it once it kind of um does a nice job of tying together everything and ending the song on a nice note of course I will have all of this listed in front of you when we play through the song together I just wanted to give you a heads up of what I would be playing in my cover version so that you could follow along if you wanted to I justed away will so hopefully you're pretty comfortable with both the chords and the strumming and picking patterns once you think you have everything down pat and you can play them without really thinking too hard go ahead and click continue and we'll play through the whole song together and I'll list all of the chords and lyrics and everything in front of you and uh yeah it'll be fun this is Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus We CL we chained our hearts in vain we jumped never asking why we I fell under your spell of love no one could deny don't you ever say I just walked away I will always you I live a running my life I will always you came in like a raing ball I never hit so hard in love all I wanted was to break you out all you ever did was W me yeah you w me I put you high up in the sky and now you're not coming down it's slowly turned you let me burn now we rashes on the ground don't you ever say I just walked away I will always I live running for my life I will always I came like a Ron ball I never hit so hard in love all I wanted was to break your W all you ever did was me yeah you me I never me to start a war I just wanted you to let me in and instead of using Force I guess I should have let you in I never me to start a war I just wanted you to let me in I guess I should have let you in don't youever I just walked away I will always you I came in like a raing ball I never hit so hard in love all I want was to break your WS all you ever did was me I came in like a raing ball yeah I just closed my eyes and SW left me crouching in a blaz and fall all you ever did was W me yeah you wre me so congratulations you guys just played through Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus um version one if you'd like to go ahead and learn another version which doesn't require Capo then continue watching um and if not stay tuned to the very end for a special giveaway that I have no one could so if you're watching at this point I'm assuming that you don't have a c and you'd like to learn this version without a capo so for this version you'll only need to know four chords um some of them are a little bit difficult but like I said the beginning you can watch this video that I have on how to practice bar chords if that's something that you'd like to work on um but if not go ahead and continue and I'll show you four chords you need to know to play the version of this song that doesn't require Capo you only need to know four chords the first chord is D Minor which looks like this and sounds like this and remember the x's mean not to play that string which means you're not going to be playing the low E string or the low a string on this chord after D Minor we need to know F which is a B chord but it is a very common bar chord so you should get used to playing it now it looks like this and it sounds like this after F you need to know C which looks like this and sounds like this and then the last chord you need to know is B flat which is another B chord it looks like this and it sounds like this so why don't you go ahead and pause the video and make sure that you can play through those four chords and have them memorized with fingering position and all of that and um once you're comfortable with that go ahead and go back to this time which was a time earlier in my tutorial but um this is where I showed you the strumming and picking patterns that you can use for this song They're applicable for both versions so if you're watching this all you have to do is make sure you're playing the right chords but with the same strumming and picking patterns that I showed you earlier then after you've watched the strumming and picking go ahead and return to this spot right now and um we will go through the entire song together never it's I so hopefully you were able to pick up the strumming and picking patterns that I showed you earlier in the tutorial let's go ahead and put the chord strumming and picking all together and play through the entire song I'm going to have all the chores and lyrics and everything listed in front of you and um yeah good luck this is Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus without a c we CL we chained our hearts in vain we jumped never asking why we kissed I fell under your spell love no one could deny don't you ever say I just walked away I will always I can't live a life running for my life I will always I came in like a raing ball I never hit so hard in love all I wanted was to break your walls all you ever did was me yeah you w me I put you high up in the sky now you're not coming down it's slowly turned you let me burn and now we're ashes on the ground don't you ever say I just walked away I will always want you I can't live Al Al running for my life I will always I can't like a raing ball I never it's so hard in love all I wanted was to break you all all you ever did was me I came in like a raing b yeah I just closed my eyes and SW left me crouching in a blaz and fall all you ever did was R me yeah you I never me to start a war I just wanted you to let me in and instead of using Force I guess I should have let you in I never meant to start a war I just wanted you to let me in I guess I should have let you in don't you ever say I just walked away I will always I Came In Like A B I never hit so hard in love all I wanted was to break you all all you ever did was me I came in like a w yeah I just closed my eyes and SW left me crouching on a blazing fall all you ever did was me yeah you wreck me yeah you wreck me so that was my tutorial for Wrecking Ball by Miley cyers make sure to give this video a thumbs up if you enjoy my tutorial and if I was able to help you even just a little bit and um if you are subscribed to my channel and you leave a comment below I wanted to thank all of you subscribers by doing a little giveaway so um if you are subscribed and you leave a comment I will enter your name into my giveaway for a couple of guitar things so the first thing I have to give to you guys is a guitar pick holder so this comes in handy if you have a lot of guitar picks lying around um I will also make sure to include a couple of guitar picks for you in this um I will also give you a purple guitar strap so this will be great for those of you who have a guitar but don't have a strap for it these are really helpful for when you're standing up to be able to hold your guitar correctly and in position and I will also give you this Capo it's a gold Capo and I will initial it forever faithful as well as include this song title which would be racking Ball by myus and of course this wouldn't be a complet giveaway unless I also included a free private 30 minute Skype lesson and that's a great opportunity for all of you guys who have been requesting songs that maybe are not as popular right now or just um maybe people aren't as familiar with so that'll be a great time for us to learn those songs together and I will go ahead and teach you any song that you want to learn or we can spend that time just talking or we can JY or you can listen to a couple of my originals that I have before I upload them on Youtube it'll be a fun time so um make sure to go ahead and leave a comment and subscribe and like my video and yeah hopefully I'll see you guys around on Skype thanks so much for watching I really hope that I was able to help you and I'll see you guys next time bye you wre me yeah you wre me