Lauren Bateman teaches The Beatles' Get Back using three chords: A major, D major, and A7. The main trick is lifting your middle finger to switch from A to A7, and the strumming stays simple with straight eighth-note down strums throughout.
Get back, get back, get back to where you once belong.
Get back, get back, get back to where you once belong.
Hey, guitar enthusiasts, we're gonna be doing a very simple Beatles song here called Get Back. There's a couple little different timing things that I want you to be aware of. So, so we're gonna go through it step by step in this lesson.
So let's start off with the chords. We really only use three simple chords. The first is going to be an A major chord. The second is going to be a D major chord. And the last is going to be an A7 chord. That very twangy, bluesy sound. Right, that's where that 7 comes in that gives you that twangy sound. Now the great thing about this is if you play your A chord with fingers 1, 2 and 3, to play an A7 chord, all you have to do is lift up your middle finger, right? Your second finger, we lift it up and that's an A7. It's the chord where I tell students, you can really tell me how you feel because you're essentially just flipping me off. Alright, So A to A7, just lifting up that second finger. Very, very easy chord transition. Now, to go from a 7 into that D chord, all you have to do is lift up the third finger, move the first finger down A string, Second finger comes to the bottom string, third finger goes to the third fret on the second string. Okay, you got your D chord. And then to get back to your A chord, just lift your first finger up a string, second finger in place, third finger in place, and you're back to that A chord. Which is why this is a great beginner song. Because the chord transitions, you can really work on getting this A and D chord down pretty well. So we're going to be using one mains strumming pattern for this entire song. But there are a couple points where we are going to be doing something a little bit different rhythmically. And I'll talk about that when we get there. First, let's just talk about what we're going to be doing. For the rhythm is going to be a straight eighth note strumming pattern. Eighth notes. We're going to be doing eight down strums. Okay, so it's going to be counted this way.
One and two and three and four. And one and two and three and four.
And again.
Alright, it's a little peppier than that, but I just wanted you guys to understand the strumming pattern. We're going to be doing that for the entire Song, except in a couple places. Let's talk about the intro because it does this little timing difference comes in on the intro. So the intro is essentially four measures. Okay. So we're going to be counting to eight four times. The first three measures are all A. So it's very simple. It's just 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&.
Okay, and on that last measure we do something just a little bit different rhythmically. So that last measure we're going to be doing four, four down strums. On the A we're going to be.
Doing one and two and.
And then very quickly we're going to go to the D and do a down strum over the three. And on the fourth beat we're right back on that A. Okay, so it's going to be 1.
And 2 and 34 again, 1 and 2 and 3, 4.
Okay, a little bit more up to speed.
One more time.
Okay, so that's the timing and this little change up happens throughout the song for you to listen to. You'll hear it in the choruses, you'll hear that little break in the rhythm and that's where that part's coming in. So if you take this whole intro one more time, it's going to be 1, 2, 3, 3, 4.
1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and.
Ready?
1 and 2 and 3, 4.
Now once we hit that 4 on the A chord, we're jumping right into the verse sections. Now the verse sections, the great thing about this song is once we get past the intro, the chord progression is very repetitive. It's an A chord followed by an A7 chord followed by a D chord followed by an A chord. And like I said, every once in a while you're going to hear that rhythm discrepancy. Okay, so that's going to take place in the chorus. Okay, the chorus, the verse is all eighth notes. And I'm going to do a little playthrough so that you guys can hear it. The chorus, let's just talk about that real quickly. So the chorus is going to be.
A 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and.
And then the next one's going to be a 7.
1 and 2 and 3 and 4.
And then we have D 1 and.
2 and, and 4.
And now we have that split measure.
1 and 2 and 3, 4.
And then the next time through it's all regular rhythm. Okay, that last, that last measure is not split measures. It's just going to be an A chord. So I'm going to play through now. I'm going to play through a verse and a chorus so that you guys can hear the timing of this. I'll start at the intro and then if you guys need to slow it down to play along with me, you can use the settings cog below to slow it down. 1, 2, 1, 2. Ready?
AM.
Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner but he knew it.
Wouldn'T last.
Jojo left his home in.
Tucson, Arizona for some California grass.
Get back, get back.
Get back to where you once belong.
Get back, get back get back to where it once belonged.
And now you know why I love this song? Because that's really it. That's all you gotta do is just keep going through those verses and choruses over and over again. Now if you're looking for another easy, simple, two chord Beatles song, then I would highly recommend going and checking out my Eleanor Rigby lesson right over there, which uses the same strumming pattern except two very different simple chords.
