Lauren Bateman breaks down the Beatles' "Come Together" for guitar, starting with the iconic bass lick on open D and G strings. She covers the main chords (Dm, A7, G7), a simple all-downs strumming pattern, and the song structure with exact counts so you can play along.
Questions this video answers
D minor, A7, G7 (with occasional B minor in the chorus).
Second fret on the G string (hammer-on from open G to 2nd fret).
All downstrokes for the entire song (with optional palm muting).
Held for a count of eight (one strum, held for eight beats).
Open D string picked twice, open G picked, then hammer-on to 2nd fret on G (then B-string first-fret note or mini-bar), then back to 2nd fret on G.
Chapters
Hey everyone, welcome back. This was actually a song request that I had from someone. Sometimes I get to song requests. Not all the time, but I do listen. And this is another Beatles song, just in a Beatles mood it seems lately. But it's come together which has this cool little lick part as the intro. And you know there's a few different ways you can play this. Usually I think the bass player plays this and I think it's.
So it's played more up here at the 10th and 12th fret of the guitar. But we're gonna play it down here on the open strings just so that when we go into our open chords, D minor, we'll be right there and we won't have to move too far. So a great way for our guitar to do what the bass player is doing. So overall, nothing too crazy in this song. I do see D minor chords, A7, G7. If you don't know A7 or G7, don't worry, you can just play the regular A and G chords. It just won't sound sound exactly like the song. And the only tricky chord that comes in every once in a while is a B minor chord on the come together part.
Come together.
Right now.
Over me. So for that part, if you want to use the three fingered B minor again, not going to sound exactly like a full B minor chord but. But we'll get you through the song if you're a beginner and haven't learned bar chords yet. And you know, I wouldn't rush into learning bar chords if you haven't learned your open chords yet. So if you want to get on the same page with me, I would go to laurenbatement.com, print out the chord chart on my website for Come together, come back here. And we're going to get started off with this intro. So this intro that kind of comes in throughout the song. And again this is the part that's usually played by the bass player. So we're going to start by playing two open strings on our D string. So open means we don't fret anything with our fretting hand. So open string D string. So it's going to be D D and then we're just going to pick down open on the G string. So it's the fourth string twice.
And then the third string once.
Now what happens next is a little bit again a slightly more beginner, intermediate to intermediate type thing. We're going to do what's called a hammer on. Now if you haven't learned how to do a Hammer on yet. Don't worry for these kind of lick parts if you don't know how to play lead guitar or anything yet, don't worry. We're just going to strum a D minor chord, no biggie. But if you do, we're going to do a hammer on. With our second finger we're going to play the open G string and really hard and fast. We're going to hit that second fret on the G string. So it's going to sound like this.
So it's one pick, two notes. So we've got open D twice.
Open G hammer.
So one more time it's open D twice, open G followed by a hammer with your second finger on the second fret of the third string. After that we're going to go down. So there's two ways you can play this. The easier way is to just play the B string at the first fret with your first finger.
The more tricky way, if you're starting to learn how to play two strings at the same time with one finger, it's like a little mini bar. You can play the first fret with both fingers. So here it is without.
That's the easy way to do it. The barring way.
This makes it sound a little bit more. It adds a little tension in there. So you can pick which way you want to do. But the first finger is definitely the easiest way to do it. So so far we've got double D, G to hammer on, first finger on the B string and then we're going to return back to the second fret on the G sticks string and that's the whole thing. So we go D open open to an open G.
To hammer. First finger on the second fret, second fret on the third string.
And let me do a little close up so that you guys can see my hands and what I'm doing here. Just so you guys can have an idea of what's going on with my fingers here. So we've got open.
And here it is with the bar.
Alright, so that's the intro to the song. And that keeps popping in. It happens as the intro. It happens after the verses and it happens after the choruses. So it really keeps coming into the song. Now like I said, if you can't do that, just play D minors works totally fine. So all we're going to be doing in terms of strumming is all downs. Now there is fancier ways to do this. We're Going to keep it simple because for some people, playing that lick is hard enough. So what we're going to do is we're going to start with a D minor chord.
And we're just going to do all downs.
That's our strumming pattern for the entire song. If you know how to do palm muting, you can palm mute if you want.
Sounds really cool for these verses.
Here come old flat top. Here come groom up Slowly he go.
So that sounds really cool if you know how to do a little bit of palm muting. Really pushes this song more into the intermediate realm. But if you can't do that, keep it simple. So we go through the verses. We've got four D minors in a row, which is super nice. You don't have to change chords for four measures. Then we jump over to this A7 for two measures.
And then at the end of the verse we play a G7 and we hold it.
Gotta be a joker. You just do what it please.
And then after that you jump right back into that intro lick. So that's our verse. It's basically four measures of D minor, two measures of A, and then strum and hold G7. And. Sorry, that was A7. It's two measures of A7 and then G7 strum and hold at the end. And then we do an intro lick and then we go back to another verse and then we jump into our chorus and I will go and play along so that you guys can hear this intro, verse and chorus section. So when we get to the chorus, the chords become split and the chords kind of line up with the lyrics, which is great. So we have a B minor chord and an A chord splitting a measure, as well as a G chord and an A chord splitting a measure. So it's going to sound like this.
Come together.
Right now.
Over me.
So if you heard it, I just played quarter notes. So we have three B minors come together. 2, 3, 4. So on the fourth beat we're switching to A major.
Come to 1, 2, 3, 4.
And then A. I'm sorry, A goes to G for two beats.
And then back to A, which we cut off really quick. So it's B minor for three. 1, 2, 3, A for one.
G twice and then A once really quick. Then we cut it off, but it still fills two beats. So it sounds like this come together.
Right now.
Over me. And then after that we go right back into.
So that keeps popping in. And at that point you've done everything in the song and it just starts repeating the only Thing that changes is we get to this instrumental where there's kind of this cool little solo thing that goes on. We're mostly gonna be hanging on D minor for that. So I've got D minor for four measures, a seven for four measures, and then we're gonna strum D minor, but we're gonna hold it out for two measures. So counting will be very important. So there are some counting things here that are important because Also on the G7, we're only strumming once, but we're holding it for a count of eight. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
Before we jump back in to that little lick. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through each part of the song. I'm going to play.
What I'm doing is I'm going to do the second intro like par. I'm going to skip the first verse. I'm going to go intro, verse, chorus, intro, just so you guys can hear how it sounds in kind of an order. So I'm kind of skipping that first verse. So it's going to be.
Now D minor.
He went O shoeshan he got told jam football he got monkey finger he shoot coca cola he said I know you, you know me One thing I can tell you is you got to be free Come together.
Right now.
Over me.
And there you go, you heard I accidentally hit the A string instead of the D and I can say, whoops, I make mistakes too. But there you go, that's the whole thing. From that intro lick to a verse to a chorus, but you can kind of hear the progression, so. And again, if you can't play that intralect.
Just strum a D minor and let it ring out and you're going to be totally fine for the entirety of this song. I think that's really it. So good luck and practice hard. Keep it simple if you need to, but you can add in some of those harder elements if you want to. Want a little bit more of a challenge. So thank you so much. If you enjoyed this lesson, laurenbatement.com donate you can go make a donation. Really appreciate that. Practice hard and I'll see you guys in the next lesson.
