YouTube guitar lesson (transcript) by Lauren Bateman teaching a fingerstyle arrangement of Elvis Presley’s “Can't Help Falling in Love.” The instructor explains using arpeggios to mimic piano, uses a capo on the 2nd fret, and walks through the song’s intro, verse, and chorus with specific chord progressions and picking patterns. The lesson includes alternatives for harder chords (F → Fmaj7), optional embellishments (repeating top strings on double chords), and a play-through.
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Hey, guitar enthusiasts, welcome back. I have a special treat for you. We're going to be doing Can't Help Falling in Love by Elvis Presley. Beautiful song. Let's get into the lesson.
Now. This is a wonderful song. I mean, when I was listening to it, I remembered how much, how beautiful this song actually is. And what we're going to be doing is we're going to be doing some finger picking in this lesson. Now this song is originally. It sounds like it's played on piano when I went and listened to the original. But. But we're going to be mimicking what the piano is doing on our guitar by playing what we call arpeggios. Now arpeggios are when you play individual notes of a chord versus just like strumming straight through. So if I were going to strum a G chord versus arpeggio.
That'S the difference. All right, so we're going to be using lots of arpeggios and I will go through those in this lesson. So you can probably see I have a capo here on the second fret to make some of these chords easier for you. Now if you need to pull up the lyrics and the chords, you can go to my website, laurenbateman.com you1 side and keep this video open and you can follow along there. So there's three sections to this song. Intro, verse, chorus. Let's start off with the intro. So the chords that are part of our intro are going to be the C chord, the G chord and an A minor chord. All right. This song is probably a little bit more late beginner because there is an F chord that comes in later. We'll talk about that when we get there. So the intro is going to be a C chord, full measure G, A minor, and then we have a C, C and a G splitting a measure on the end. So let's talk about the arpeggios we're going to be doing. So we're going to be doing five string and six string arpeggios. So essentially our thumb is going to be changing depending on what chord we're playing. So a C chord is a five string chord. So the thumb would be playing the fifth string, the bass note. And our first, second and third fingers are always going to be on the bottom three strings. Okay, so we'll have finger.
Three. So first finger on the G string, second finger on the B string, third finger on the high E string. Now when we go to our six string chord, the G chord, the thumb would be playing the sixth string as the bass note. And again, these fingers are still going to be on the third string, second string and first string. So the pattern we're going to play, let me say since we're on the G chord, the pattern is going to be sixth string, third string, second string, first string, second string, third string. So it's gonna be 6, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 6, 3, 2. 1, 2, 3. Okay, and when we go to our C chord and our A minor chord, it's gonna be fifth string, five, three, two. One, two, three, five, three, two, one, two, three. Okay.
So if I were to play this intro, it would sound like this. C.
G.
A minor.
C, G. Now for that, because those are split measures. I just did thumb one, two. I did thumb one, two, thumb one, two. Okay, so it'd be the fifth string, third string, second string, sixth string, third string, sixth, second string. Okay, so I'll play through that intro again.
Okay, so that's one way you can go about playing that intro. So let's get into the verse. So the verse here, we have a few different chords. This is where the F chord comes into play. So if you can play a full bar chord, which will be a little bit easier because we have the capo on the second fret, Great. Play that F chord. If you can't and you need to use an F major 7, you can do that. If you use this three finger version, your thumb would just play the fourth string. So it would be 4, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3. For your arpeggio, if you use the four string version, which might sound nicer because you have a lower bass note, you would play it like a C chord. 5, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3. Okay. Doesn't sound as nice as the full F chord, but it will work. If you need an version. Because I know sometimes those bar chords are hard until you get them. So let's go over the progression for the verse here. So the verse, the chords, we have C, E minor, A minor twice, F, C, double G. Then we have F, G, A minor, F, C, G, double C. And then it just repeats that again for the second half of the verse. So again the C chord, 5 string arpeggio. The E minor, 6 string arpeggio, like a G chord that we did A minor, we've already done F depending on what you're going to play. If you do the full bar chord, it would be a six string arpeggio, like our G chord. Okay, so let me go through. I'm going to play this verse so that you can see how it sounds. We Got Wise Men.
Now I want to show you a little spice you can throw in with your finger picking if you want to. So some of these chords are doubles. So and I would do it more maybe on these, the double C or the double G on the end. So instead of doing the full arpeggio. 6, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3. You might want to do that for the first arpeggio and then repeat the bottom half for the next chord. What do I mean by that? So it'll sound like this and then I'll explain it to you. So we have the F.
C.
Ah, did you hear? I didn't go back to the bass note. So what I did for the first G was I played a full arpeggio. 6, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3. And then I just repeated the bottom three strings. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. Adds a little spice. So let's hear what it's going to sound like. So if I did Wise Men.
There it is on the A minor, F, C, G.
That I can.
You don't have to do it every time you have a double chord, but you can see it adds a nice little flavor, a little dynamic, so that you're not always playing the same arpeggio over and over. And I think when I was learning this song last night, I think when you listen to the piano, they stay on some of those higher melodies, and I think that's why I was doing that.
But again, I just think it adds a nice little flavor. So you're not just doing this straight arpeggio all the time. And it kind of piques the interest of the listener if you were going to perform this song. So. So just a few little tips on the verse there. What we're going to do next is move on to our chorus section. Hey, guys, I hope you're enjoying this lesson so far. If you haven't subscribed to the channel, make sure to do that and turn the notifications on because YouTube will show you more videos just like this one. So the chorus brings in some new chords into the mix. We have an E minor chord which we played before, but we have a B7 chord that comes in the. As well as an A7, a D minor and a G. So we're kind of like changing keys a bit here in this chorus. And what I'm going to do for this E minor chord, the first time I get into it, I'm probably going to play it with my first and second finger. But once I get into the B7, it's very easy to just use your second and third finger on that E minor chord to go between the B7 and the E minor. Okay. They'll share. You'll have a pivot finger. That second finger won't have to move at all. Okay, so here's what our chorus would sound like. The B7 is a five string chord. So that would be like our C chord. 5, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3. The A7 is also a 5 string and the D minor is a 4 string. So you would play that. 4, 3, 2. 1, 2, 3. Okay, so let's hear how this chorus is going to sound. Ready? It's going to be like 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Wrong D minor chord helps me play your chords correctly. All right, so that is how our chorus is going to sound. So let me go through this top to bottom intro, verse, chorus, so you guys have a little bit of a play along. I'm not going to sing. Hopefully I don't get hit with copyright here, but let's give it a try from the intro. Ready? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Okay, repeat that again. Shall I day.
Okay, here comes that chorus.
Like a river flows.
And then you would go right back into the verse. And I played the D minor correctly this time for you guys, so that's great. So then we would have a verse, a chorus, another verse, and at the very end of the song, you wouldn't play a double C. You would just play that, you know, see with you.
So you would just strum and hold on the very end of this song. Hope you guys enjoyed this lesson video. Leave me a comment below and let me know. YouTube is gonna pop a couple more videos over here. Go check those out. And I hope to see you guys in another lesson video very soon.
