A short YouTube guitar tutorial (Lauren Bateman) explaining how to play The Beatles' 'Eleanor Rigby' using only two chords (E minor and C). The instructor demonstrates simple down‑strum eighth‑note and quarter‑note patterns, runs through lyrics while indicating chord changes, and briefly suggests palm‑muting as an intermediate embellishment before closing.
Hey guys, it's Lauren here. Welcome back. Super super simple song. For you guys it's gonna be a very quick tutorial because it's only two chords. It's the Beatles Eleanor Rigby. So if you want go to my website laurenbate.com Download the chord chart. This way you can read along with the chords and lyrics. The way I am now, there really isn't a lot of rhyme or reason to this song. We're basically playing a lot of E minor and every once in a while we're throwing in some C chords to spice it up just a little bit. So if you learnt my simple two fingered chords, you really only need to move your finger once.
To play this song. So makes it a really, really awesome super simple beginner song. This and Horsewit no name two great ones that are only two chords. Now if you go and look at another chord chart or you buy a music book, you're gonna see there's some other variations on these chords chords. But to keep it simple we're just going to be using a C chord and an E minor chord. Very easy. And the strumming pattern we can use is all down strums. We're going to do eighth note strumming. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And so to grab that E minor 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 all downs. If that's too much for you, you can do quarter notes. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3.
And that's really all you need to do. No, the rest is you just have to follow along and know when I'm playing a C chord or when I'm playing an E minor. So what I'm going to do since there is a little bit, there's some repetitiveness but there's also some parts where it's a little quirky and they don't follow a pattern. I'm going to start for me it's kind of like the first page which starts at I'll look at all the lonely people and ends with nobody there. What does he care? So I'm just going to run through so that you guys can hear it, what it sounds like and I'll show you how you can spice it up a little bit with some paw muting at the end of this if you want to. If you're a little bit more of an intermediate player and you want to spice it up just a little bit. So let's take it from the top. I'm just going to do 8th note down strums 1 and 2 and 3.
And 4 and I look at all the lonely people.
1, 2, 3, 4.
Look at all the lonely people.
One, two, three, four. Eleanor Ribey picks up the rice in the church where the wedding has been.
Lives in a dream.
Wakes at the window Wearing the face that she keeps in a job by the door.
Who is a fool? All the lonely people.
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people they do, they all belong.
Father McKenzie writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear.
No one comes near look at him working Donning your socks in the nights when there's nobody there.
What does it care? All the lonely people.
And so forth and so on. So you can see it's a really, really simple song. That's why it's a great beginner song and just something to get people used to switching back between an E minor and a C chord. So I mentioned earlier that you can spice this up with a little bit of palm muting. If you're an absolute beginner, ignore it. I do have a video on palm muting that you can go look and see how to use this technique. It's a little bit more of an intermediate thing. So if you're just getting into guitar, I wouldn't recommend jumping onto that. But just to give you guys a feel of what this could be with a simple song that's only two chords. So I would probably, you know, on the part that goes.
I would probably keep that nice and open. Fun for parts like Ellen or Rigby.
Died in the church and was buried along with her name.
Nobody came Father MacKenzie wiping the dead so you can.
Hear it gives it a little bit of this mysteriousness.
And then when you get back to all the. All the lonely people.
All the little lonely people.
So just a little palm muting technique for you guys to look forward to when you're not a beginner anymore. But this is a great song in the beginning. Just keep it simple. Don't worry about the palm muting and all the intricacy stuff. Keep it simple. Just learn to go back and forth between these two chords and I'll see you guys in the next lesson.
