Falling Slowly Guitar Lesson FINGERSTLYE & STRUMMING

Hey, guitar enthusiast Lauren Bateman here. I'm going to teach you an absolutely beautiful song. It's a song called Falling Slowly from the movie Once. I'm going to show you how to finger pick and strum this song. So let's get into it.

Now this song is a little bit more intermediate because of some of the finger picking applications and the strumming pattern I'm going to show you here is a little bit more intricate. So you're an absolute beginner. Might not be the best song for you, but if you're in the late beginner to intermediate stage, let's give it a go. So the first thing we're going to talk about, there's going to be two sections. We're talking about the finger picking section and then we're going to talk about the strumming section of the song. So let's start with the finger picking. If you need the tab for this, I do have it on my website, laurenbatement.com I'll put a link in the description below. You guys can go over to the website, open that up and follow along with me here. Now the intro follows along to basically, basically two different chords. A C major chord and a variation of this F suspended second chord. Okay. And I'm going to show you how to play through it. Let's do the C chord first because that's going to be the easiest now and I will do close ups on this afterwards. So if you guys want to see what my hands are doing, I will go in for a more extreme close up. But first let's start with the panned out version first. So the C chord does the same thing, it doesn't change and, and we're just playing a C major chord and we're doing what I call a pluck. Alright. And it's, we're going to be playing the thumb on the fifth string and the second finger on the second string at the same time. Now the thumb, in case you've never done finger picking before, the thumb kind of controls the top three strings and then we're going to be using the first, second and third fingers. First finger, own string three. Second finger, own string two, third finger, own string three. So just so you guys know, that's where my fingers are placed here on the right hand. Alright. And if you're the left hand, it's the same thing. Now we're going to be plucking fingers, the thumb and the first finger at the same time. Okay. So it's going to be pluck and then first finger. So, okay, these are all eighth notes. It's going to be 1 and 2 and 3 and 4M. Now after we do that pluck and then the first finger, we need to put our pinky down. We're going to make like a C add nine chord. We're going to put our pinky down on the second string third fret. Because we need this note. So it's going to be.

So it's pluck, first finger, second finger, first finger.

Okay, now we're going to grab this high E string with our third finger. Okay? And then the first finger again. So it kind of keeps always going back to the first finger. So it's pluck one second finger, one third finger, one second finger and then first finger. So it's.

Okay, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4.

And one more time, 1 and 2.

And 3 and four.

And so that's our C chord and that's what we're going to do. So that will be your first chord and it'll be your third chord in the progress. So the intro goes C to the F suspended. C to the F suspended. So the first time through. The first time through, this is how we're going to play the F. And I'm going to use my thumb to play the first note here. I love using my thumb to play bass notes. For some people, it's very uncomfortable. But for me, where I have small fingers, I like to use my thumb a lot or small hands. So we're going to be doing the first finger at the first fret of the second string. And then I have my thumb playing the bass note from first fret up here. And the same thing we're going to do pluck. Except this time we're plucking the bass note of the F, which is that top string. So it's going to be the thumb and the second finger again. And then first finger, same thing. Pinky comes down second finger, first finger. Now we're going to do the third finger again, except this finger is going to lay flat because I got to get the first fret here on this first fret, first string. This is why this is a little more intermediate. Okay, so so far we've got PL.

First finger, second finger, first finger, third finger, first finger. Lift up back to the open string on the bottom E. First finger. Okay? So altogether it is.

Okay, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4.

And so the first part will be C chord.

1 and 2 and 3 and 4.

And 1 and then right into the.

F. 1 and 2, 3 and 4.

And now back to the C played the same exact way.

1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and.

And then the second time through we change what we're doing on this F chord. We're just going pluck.

And then first finger, second finger, first finger, second finger, first finger, second finger. Okay, so that last song is Pluck.

One, two, one, two, one, two, one.

All right, so all together before I go in for the close up, we have our C chord.

F.

C, yeah.

Last f.

So that's the whole thing together. That's what we're doing for the intro. And you're also going to play this over the verse. So you've basically accomplished the intro in the verses for this song. So let me go in for a close up here so you guys can see what's going on here with my fretting hand. Going to show you. Here we have our C chord. Now this is how I was adding the pinky. I was putting it on the second string third fret. Ok, so what I was doing is we have C.

Here comes the pinky.

Now here's the F. You can see I've got my thumbs looping over to grab this bass note. Okay, so I have the first finger and the bass note here. Now watch what my first finger does. Here's the pinky.

Look at. See how I bar this? I flatten this. Okay, so it's. We've got.

Then back to the C chord.

Then the F.

So let me do that one more time through for you guys. Alright, so we have the C chord. Pinky comes down open E string.

To the F suspended chord. Pinky comes down. First finger comes down.

First finger comes up. Okay, and then back to the C chord.

And then just the regular.

Back and forth.

So I'm gonna play it top to bottom for you guys so that you can hear what it sounds like. All right, so we got 1, 2, 3, 4.

Okay, so that's it. And then you just repeat that again. And that would be.

I don't know you, but I want to.

Okay, so that's all we're doing over that intro and those verses. And that comes in again when we go back to the next verse and stuff. But now what I'm going to talk about is some different dynamics that we're going to throw in in terms of strumming for this song. So the next section is the pre chorus where we're going to start doing some strumming. And the difficulty about going from finger picking to strumming is you don't have a p Usually so. But that's okay. We still have our thumb and our forefinger that we're going to use. So we're going to try to add dynamics to this as much as possible. So the strumming pattern, I'm going to use the 16th note strumming pattern. For this section I'm going to use a different one. For the chorus I'm going to be doing 1, 2 and a 3, 4 and a.

So it's going to be down, down, down, up, down, down, down, up.

Now when you're strumming without a pick, use your thumb on the downs and your index finger on the ups.

So it would be down, down, down, up, down, down, down, up, down, down, down, up, down, down, down, up, 1.

2 and a 3, 4 and up. Okay, and again, if we were doing split measures here, which we're going to be doing on the A minor and G. So the chord progression is a full measure of F suspended, second A minor G and then a split measure of S suspended with the G, then A minor G and then two full measures of S suspended. And then we'll go into the chorus and talk about that section last.

One.

Two and a three, four and a one, two and a three, 4 and a one, two and a 3, 4 and a 1, 2 and a 3, 4 and a one, 2 and a three, 4 and a One, two and a 3, 4and a.

So you can hear it's not as clear as a pick. A pick I can get a really nice clear.

That's why I prefer to strum with a pick because I think you can get, you can get a lot more expressive with the pick. But we're limited because we were, we were finger picking here. So the chorus now is the next section of the song and we're going to do some really interesting strumming here. So let's see what we get into. Hey guys, I hope you are enjoying this lesson so far. Don't forget to click on the subscribe button and turn on your notifications. This way, you know, when I release more videos just like this one. Now the chorus, we've got a C chord, we have the F suspended second, A minor second, F suspended second, Then we got C, Fs ascended second, a minor seven and then the F suspended chord, we're going to be playing that twice. These are all full measures. And the strumming pattern we're going to use. This is a little bit intricate. And I picked up a pick because I want to use the pick. But we're just going to Use our thumb. So it's going to be 1 and 2 and A. Okay, that's the first half of the strumming pattern. So it's going to be 1 and 2 and A.

Down, down, down, down, up.

Okay, again, 1 and 2 and up.

Down, down, down, down, UP.

Now the second half of the pattern is going to be 3E and down, up, down and then 4E and up. So it's a 16th note strumming half.

Is down, up, down, down, up, down.

Up, 3E and 4E. And so if I did the whole thing, it would be 1 and 2 and a 3e and 4e and a.

So it's down, down, down, up.

I'm sorry.

Down, down, down, down, up, down, up, down, down, up, down, up.

So that would sound like this if.

Now if I do it with a pick, you can hear the strumming a little bit more clearly. 1 and 2 and a 3 and.

4E and a 1 and 2 and.

A 3 and four e and a.

Down, down, down, down, up down up down, down, up, down up down, down, down, down, up down up. Down, down, up, down up.

Alright, so we've got 1 and 2 and a 3e and 4e and a 1 and 2 and a 3e & 4e and a. So if we play this over the chorus, it'll be three.

A minor 7.

Okay, hear that?

Now this song, if I were going to play it, I would probably improvise a bit. I'm trying to stick to that strumming pattern as much as possible. But a great thing as a guitar player, eventually your rhythm's gonna get a mind of its own and you just want to play in what you're feeling, you.

Know? Take this sinking boat and haun it home. We've still got time.

Raise your own FL voice, you have a choice, you make it.

Now.

And then when we get to the verse, we would go right back to the picking part. Okay, so there you go. That is basically the entirety of the entire song. It's really just going between this finger picking, these strumming patterns. I hope you guys enjoyed this lesson video. Make sure to give me a thumbs up. And if you want to learn more about finger picking, I do have a finger picking course. I'll put a link in the description below. This way you guys can go and check that out. YouTube is going to pop up a couple more videos over here. Make sure to go check those out and I hope to see you guys again in another lesson video.