Coldplay Clocks Guitar Lesson - Beginner Guitar Songs

Hey, guitar enthusiasts, Lauren Bateman here. And in this lesson video we're going to be going over Clocks by Coldplay, which has a lot of little cool things you can do for picking. So let's get into the lesson video.

Real quick. If you guys need the chord chart to this video, you can go to my website, laurenbateman.com I'll put a link in the description below as well for you guys to go and grab that. And, and if you're digging the new Lauren Bateman T shirts and you'd like to support the channel, you can hop over to laurenbateman.com T Shirts. I have some cool little designs over there, so if you want to go grab one, I'd appreciate it. But let's get into the song. So this song is a piano song. A lot of Coldplay songs are piano songs. And there is this cool little intro part that goes.

So I'm going to show you how.

To play that on the guitar.

Guitar using three string chord triads here. Alright, so what we're going to be doing is basically mimicking the chords we're going to be playing on the open part of the guitar. But we're actually going to be playing some notes up here.

In a pattern like that to mimic this piano section. So let's talk about what we're going to do there. Now, while this won't affect what we're going to be doing on the picking, I just want to let you know that this song, when we go into the strumming, does have a capo on the first fret of your guitar. So you'll want to make sure to do that for the strumming portion. But for this first picking section, you're not going to have to worry about it too much. So we're going to be using a couple chord shapes. We're going to be doing like a little mini bar with our first finger. And it's going to be. The first finger is going to play the 11th fret on the first two strings.

So.

That'S what it's going to sound like. And the pattern that we're going to play for all of these chords is.

1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1st, 2.

Okay, that's the strings we're playing.

1, 2, 3,1, 2, 3, 1,2.

And I'm playing that down, up, up, down, up, up, down, up. So down, up, up, down, up, up, down, up, down, up, up, down, up, up, down, up. That's the picking pattern that I'm using and how I'm using my pick. So down, up, up, down, up, up, down, up. And that takes up a full measure. And what we're doing is we're following the chords that someone else is playing down here. So someone's going to be playing a D chord. It's technically a D sharp because of this capo. And that's what someone's playing up here. They're playing.

A little kind of D sharp triad down here. So this is a great song, if you had a friend, that one person can strum the chords and one person can play the little piano intro. So that is our first chord. The next chord is going to look kind of like a D minor chord. Well, it does look exactly like a D minor chord. It doesn't kind of look like a D minor chord. It is a D minor chord on the bottom three strings.

Okay, so we're playing this minor shape over the minor chord chord that is being strummed down there by someone else. And it's the same picking pattern.

One, two, three, one, two, three. One, two, one, two, three. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2.

And we play that one for two measures. So that's going to get played through twice. And then our final chord looks like our little mini B minor chord. If you've ever played my easy B minor chord. So it's the eighth fret, ninth fret, tenth fret here.

And I forgot to mention that D minor chord. My mistake. I'm sorry. That D minor chord. The first finger is on the ninth fret. Third finger is on the 11th fret. Second finger is on the 10th fret. All right, but this other minor chord starts on the eighth fret. And it's 8, 9, 10.

And I will go up for close ups for these you guys, in a second. But let me play through it one more time. So it's going to be.

That's the first one. The second one's the one that looks like a D minor chord.

And we play that twice. And then the last one is the eight, nine, ten.

And then you start that all over again.

Okay, so that is the picking pattern for this. So let me just go in for a close up so that you guys can see what my fingers are doing a little bit closer with the chords. Okay, here we are for close up. So you see, I got my first finger. It's playing two strings, one finger, okay? And then the second finger is on the 12th fret of the third string. So, so we've got 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1- 2. Okay, down, up, up, down, up, up, down, up. With my picking hand, the next shape looks like a D minor, and it's starting on the 9th fret. 10th fret. Sorry, 9th, 11th, and then 10th fret here. So it looks exactly like a D minor chord. Same picking.

Okay? And the last shape is the eighth fret on the first string. Ninth fret on the second string, tenth fret on the third string.

Down, up, up, down, up, down, up. So you can see here is the shape. So we have the first shape. The second shape is here. Whoops. And the third shape is here. So you can just practice working between those shapes.

Hey, everybody, I hope you're really enjoying this lesson. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel, because YouTube will show you guys more lessons just like this one. So that's one option that you can play over the intro of the song. The other option is you just switch strum. And I'm going to show you a simplified strumming pattern, which is just a straight eighth note pattern, but we're also going to learn an accented eighth note pattern that follows the accents of this piano. Okay? So even though this is a piano song and we're playing it on guitar, there's things we can do to make it sound much more like the piano. So one thing is you could play this little intro, or we can just play the chords over here. So the chords that we're going to use are D, A minor twice and E minor. We're just going to keep repeating that over and over. Great. Repetitive song. Now, we have a capo at the first fret, so remember that. Okay? So it's the D chord relative to the capo. It is the A minor chord twice and then the E minor chord once. Now, for E minor, I typically teach my E minor chord with the first and second finger, but since we're coming from eight minor, I would recommend using the E minor with the second and third finger. Makes it super easy. We don't have to worry about changing frets or anything. That would be my recommendation. If you want to use the first finger, you can, but that's probably what my muscle memory is going to do. All right, so just want to make note of that. So the strumming pattern is going to be all downs.

1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And 1 and 2 and 3 and 4, and 1 and 2 and. And 3 and 4. And 1 and two and three and four.

E minor. So you hear that?

1 and 2 and 3 and 4 dot And 1 and 2 and 3 and four. And 1 and 2 and 3, and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3.

And 4 and so how can we spice this up a little bit? We can go.

And you're like, okay, now I hear the song. So we're mimicking this.

We're accenting where that down pick is. Because down picks have a lot more attack than an up pick. So you're going to hear those more.

So the accents are going to be on the 1, the and of 2 and 4. So it's going to be. If I put my pick down and clap, it'll be 1 and 2 and.

3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4and 1 and 2.

And 3 and 4, so that's where we're accenting our rhythms. It's going to sound like this 1.

And 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4, and.

And for the accent on the accented rhythm, I'm getting more of the entire chord on that down strum for versus the non accented rhythms where I'm maybe just getting the top couple strings of the chord. So listen to that right now. I'm going to play through, see if on the accents you can hear those higher pitches coming in. So we got 1, 2, 3, 4.

Hear that? Maybe you'll hear it more on the darker chords.

Helps if I play an E minor chord versus an E major chord. But can you hear there's a little bit of on those accents. So it's going to be 1 and.

2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 & 1 and 2 and 3 and 4& 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 for 1 and 2 and 3 and 4.

AND. And the great thing about this, this song, other than when we get to the bridge, something changes. That's literally the entire song. And you're going to hear that piano piece come in and out. So if you're playing along with the song, you can change between playing that little picking pattern and doing this strumming pattern if you're just playing along with the song. Because that picking pattern doesn't happen throughout the entire song, but it does come in and out in certain parts of the song. So let's talk about our bridge, where things change up a little bit and what we're going to do there. Hey everybody, if you're really enjoying this lesson, don't forget to give me a thumbs up because it helps show this video to more users just like you. So let's get into that bridge section. So this is one of those songs where something really, really cool happens. You if the bridge. And what happens is we actually change keys. So we're going to be using different chords on our bridge than we have from the. The rest of the song. This makes the bridge sound very distinctive and different. And I think that's important because we've just been playing the same four chords over and over and over again. We need something different to keep the song interesting. So what they do is they bring in an F major 7 chord. All right.

Very, very different from what you're hearing. So we go from hear.

If I could play the chord right there it is. So you go from hearing. You go from this to hearing this. All right. Very, very different sound. So we have F major.

7.

So we got 2 and 3 and 4 and.

1.

C.

To G. So the chord progression is F major 7 twice. C chord, G chord, F major 7 twice. C chord,. G chord. So we've gone from hearing a lot of stuff that's minor chords now to major chords. So we have the F major 7.

To.

C.

And to.

G.

And I don't think they do the syncopated rhythm in this part. I think you can just do eighth note pattern. That differentiates it more. And then on the very, very end of this bridge, we have another tiny change. We do four measures of F.

Major.

And 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and two.

And. And then it goes back to.

Then it goes right back into that little piano piece. And that's. That's the essentials of the song. So listen for those. When the piano is in, when the piano is out. Listen for those changes when you hear the accents. When you don't hear the accents and play around with different things. I love this song. It's pretty easy chords, but it gives you a lot to think about and a lot to do. So hope you guys enjoyed this lesson. Don't forget to, like, comment below and subscribe. Subscribe. YouTube's gonna throw up a couple more videos over here. Might be something that interests you. Go check those out. And I hope to see you guys in another lesson video.