Lauren Bateman teaches The Beatles' "Let It Be" on guitar, covering chord shapes, two strumming patterns from beginner to advanced, and a bass walk-down. She shows alternatives to the F major barre chord and walks through the verse-to-chorus progression at tempo.
Questions this video answers
A minor, C, G, and F (with beginner alternatives: three- or four-finger F major 7).
Each chord lasts two beats (each measure split between two chords).
An 8th-note pattern: down, down, up (counted as 1, 2 and 3, 4; repeated).
A 16th-note subdivision counted as 1 e & a (adding the ‘a’ — noted as the 16th — to the existing 8th pattern).
F: 1st fret on the high (top) string; E: open high string; D: 5th fret on the A string; C: 3rd fret on the A string.
Chapters
Speaking words of wisdom Let it be.
Well, let it be Let it be Let it be Let it be.
Whisper.
Words of wisdom Let it be.
Hey, guitar enthusiasts. I'm so excited. We're gonna be doing one of my favorite Beatles songs today. Today. I love performing this song. I'm going to show you a couple different ways how to strum this and also I'm going to show you a really cool technique for a walk down that you can use while you're playing.
Now, I don't know about you guys, but I absolutely love the Beatles. And this song is more of a piano song. So I'm going to show you how we can take a piano song and play it on the guitar. But before we do that, I'm going to show you the chords that we need to use to play the song. Fortunately for us, this song is fun. Four chords that are pretty repetitive. We have an A minor chord, we have a C chord. Okay. We also have a G chord and we do have this F bar chord. Now if you're a beginner and you aren't playing barre chords yet, that's okay. I'm going to make this easier for you. You can play a three fingered F major seven or you could play the four fingered F major seven. Okay. This way you don't have to play the bar, but you still have access to an F chord. And the great thing about this, we go from the A minor, you can see we have our first finger. And to get to that F major seven, you can leave that first finger right down. It's a nice easy change from A minor to F major 7 or even the 4 finger version. The other great thing is when you go from F to C, if you use the four finger version, you're going to keep your first and third finger in place and just move this second finger up. Watch again. So I have F major 7, four finger version, C chord. Or if you're using the three fingered version, you leave the first finger in place and you move the second and third finger. So those are your beginner options if you needed a little bit help. Because that's what we do here on My Channel. My name is Lauren Bateman and I try to make guitar make sense or make things that are difficult easier for you so that you can have fun playing the songs you know and love. So let's talk about the beginner strumming pattern. We're going to use that. This is going to be four beats. 1, 2, 3, 4. And in this song, all of the chords are two beats they split a measure. So that means we're going to do two beats on the first chord and two beats on the second chord. And the strumming pattern we're going to use, I'll start with. Our C chord here is going to be down, down, up. And the timing is 1, 2 and. Okay, so it'd be 1, 1, 2 and 3, 4. And down, down, up, down, down, up.
Now let me show you how this plays out in the song. So the first measure is C and G and then the second measure is A minor in F. And I'll use the easy F so that you guys can hear it and see it. So we have starting on the C chord, 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2 and 3, 4.
And 1, 2 and 3, 4 and.
Okay, here it is again.
So if I went through and played this entire first verse, this is what it's going to sound like with the lyrics. One, two, ready?
And I find myself in times of trouble Mother Mary comes to me.
Speaking words of wisdom Let it be.
And.
In my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me.
Speaking words of wisdom Let it be.
So you can see I use that four fingered F major seven chord. It sounded great. It sounded fine. But if you're someone who's a little bit more late beginner and you want to spice the song up a little bit more, I'm going to show you a strumming pattern that I think I really like to use on this song and I think it sounds really great. So all we're doing is we're going to add one more strum in over what we just already learned. So we had 1, 2 and 3, 4 and 1. Well now it's going to be 1, 2 and A, 3, 4 and A. We're actually adding in what we call a 16th note. So before it was just 8th notes, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. Well now we're going to 16th notes. 1 E and A, II, E and A, III E and A. 4 E and A. And that's what that A is. So let's start in the A minor chord. We're on the chorus here and it's going to start with 1, 2 and A. And then we would switch to the next chord which would be G. And then it's going to be 3, 4 and A. So it'll sound like this 1, 2 and A, 3, 4 and A. Down, down, down, up, down, down, down, up.
So now if I played that through over this chorus we would have one, two, ready?
Let it be, let it.
Be Let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom Let it be.
If you enjoyed that, you're gonna enjoy what I'm showing you next, which is this little interesting walk down that you can do. Again, this song is played on piano, and usually when they played it, they just played four chords on the piano as a walk down. So those chords would be the F chord. Then we have E minor, then we'd have D minor, and then you'd have C. So you could play it as chords. That's one option.
Okay. But for some of you, that might be a little bit tricky. But again, it's F, E minor, D, C. Because what we're doing is we're trying to mimic the bass walk down of the F note, then the E note, which would be the open string. So the F is the first fret on the top string. E is the open note on the top string. Then we'd have D 5th fret on the A string, C 3rd fret on the A string. So what I like to do if I were going to incorporate this in is I would strum the F chord, then I play the open E note, then I play the D note, and then I end on the C chord. Kind of like what I do almost in Heart of Gold or a lot of songs that have these types of walk downs. I'll usually play the first chord, I'll play the next two notes in the walk down, and then I will strum the last chord so it'll sound like this.
Again. F, E, D, C. So if I threw that into this chorus here.
Whisper was a wisdom. Let it be.
Let it be.
All right, so if you threw that in, that's the verse going into the chorus. That's what that would sound like. So let's take this all the way, verse through one chorus. We'll throw in some walk downs. We'll use that little bit more late beginner strumming pattern. If you want to use the beginner strumming pattern, that's perfect. You use that. And if you need to slow me down to play along, just slow down the settings cog and you can play along with me. Ready? Here we go. 1, 2, 3, 4.
When I find myself in times of trouble Mother Mary comes to me.
Speaking words of wisdom Let it be.
And.
In my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me.
Speaking.
Words of wisdom Let it be.
Well.
Let it be Let it be Let it be Let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom Let it be.
Now, if you guys love the Beatles as much as I do, then you guys should check out my Beatles song playlist over there. I've got songs that are beginner level, intermediate level. Click on that playlist and find one of your favorite songs to learn to play right now.
