Hey Jude Guitar Lesson for Beginners | Easy Beatles Melody Tutorial

Hey, guitar enthusiasts. Lauren Bateman here, and I'm gonna show you an absolute beginner version of Hey Jude. We're just gonna work on playing the melody line, which means we don't need any chords. I find for a lot of beginner players, you know, doing the chord changes, it's really, really difficult in the beginning. So we need to work on getting our fingers moving. So sometimes the best way to have fun on your guitar is to work on some simple melody stuff, which is what we're gonna do in this lesson for Hey Jude. Let's get started. All right, so all you're gonna need is a pick or your thumb. Some students like to pick down with their thumb on the strings, or you can use a pick to pick down on the strings. All right, I'm gonna use a pick. I prefer using a pick because it gives you a clearer sound. Now we are going to be using the first three frets of our guitar. So if you're brand new to guitar, these blocks are called frets. So this is the 1st fret, the 2nd fret, and the 3rd fret. If you see a 0, okay, we're gonna be using a music sheet and a way to play music called tablature, which is very, very common in guitar. And sometimes you're gonna see a 0. That means we're not playing any of the strings. So if I play my high E string open, that's what we call it, we call playing it open, you're gonna see a 0 on the sheet. If you're going to play the 1st fret, you're going to see a 1. If you're gonna play the 2nd fret, you're gonna see a 2. If you can play the third fret, you're gonna see a three, four, five, six, so forth and so on. Okay, so that's basically all tablature is. It's a coordinate system that tells you what string and what fret to play. Unfortunately, it doesn't tell you what fingers to play, but I'm gonna show you easily how we're gonna do it for this song. So let me just quickly play through what we're gonna be working on today. All right, so some of you might be saying, Lauren, that was really fast. I saw you moving your fingers very quickly. Don't worry, we're gonna go through this slowly, and at the end we're gonna do some playthroughs at some different speeds. So we'll take it slow, okay, because you might need to sit with this a little bit before you start playing it through, but we're gonna take it Step by step, all right? And this is something I work with my students in my 7-Level Guitar System all the time. We just have to get the fingers moving, okay? I work with a lot of older adults, ages 50 plus, and doing stuff like this just helps get those fingers moving and can graduate us to playing chords much faster. So let's start off. You probably saw I'm using fingers 1, 2, and 3 for all of this song. So when you see the number 1 on the tablature, you're gonna use your first finger. When you see the number 2 on the tablature, you're gonna use your second finger. And when you see the number 3, you're gonna use your 3rd finger. So a little less to think about. Okay. In this particular case, the finger does match the fret number. So for the first note, we are starting on the 1st fret of our B string. So I'm gonna put my 1st finger on the B string and just pick down.

All right.

For you right now, if you're an absolute beginner, just use all down picks. All right. If you're gonna use your thumb, just use all down picks with your thumb. Okay, make— keep it simple for now. So we've got first finger on the B string and then second finger on the G string. So that's the first part.

Hey Jude.

Okay, and then we're gonna repeat that G string again at the second fret. Come back down to the B string on the first fret. Put your third finger on the third string of the B string. Now something people ask me For now, if you don't have a lot of stretch, I would lift the first finger up. You don't have to. Okay, that note, just because there's a first finger behind, it's the note in front, the finger in front that plays the note. So again, from that second fret on the G string, first fret on the B string, third fret on the B string, and then open G string. Okay, let's just start there. Okay, just start there with that first part. So it's going to be Hey Jude, right?

And then 2, 1, 3, open.

Let's do that again. Ready? 2, 3, 4, 1, 2. Ready?

And then 2, 1, 3, open.

There you go. It's your first kind of part. All right, moving on. We're gonna stay on that open string. It's And we're gonna go open, 2, 3 on the G string. So open, 2, 3. Okay, open, 2, 3. And then we have our first jump. We're gonna jump down to the high E string here on the 1st fret. Okay, so just work on that run. So it's open, 2— oops, even I made a mistake.

Open, 2, 3, 1.

Okay, so if you do that and you hear like a— you kind of get that little muted sound, Don't worry, it happens even to professionals. It just means you're not hitting the string quite correctly. Always, here's a good tip if you're a beginner, play to the front of the string. It takes much less strength to play in the front of the string than it does in the back of the string. Okay, or sorry, the back of the fret. Okay, so if this is our fret box, play towards the front of the fret box and you'll need less pressure. Okay, so let's do that run again. So we have open, 2, 3, And then jumping down to the high E. So we have open, 2, 3, jump. Okay, and now we're gonna stay on that high E string. We're gonna play 1, open, 1 on the B string.

1, open, 1.

And then this is a fun one. This is like a little run. We're gonna go 3, 1 on the B string, 3, 2 on the G string. So it's gonna sound like this. If I play that whole run together, it's gonna be— 1, Okay, so let's try that together. All right, just that run.

So we got 1, open, 1, 3, 1, 3, 2.

Okay, and the timing is a little bit different. We're not going to worry about the timing right now. I just want you to get the rhythm. Let's try that again.

2, ready, and 1, open, 1, 3, 1, 3, 2.

Okay, and now that 1 and 3 are going to be played a little bit faster, so it's going to be— okay, that's the melody. All right, so let's try that one time.

2, 3, 4.

Okay, now first finger is going to come down to the B string. We're going to play 1, 3, 3.

Okay, so that's remember, remember.

Okay, play that 3 again on the B string, then come down to the high E string 3, 1, open, and then 1 on the high E string, 3 on the B string, 1 on the B string. Okay, so if I take it from that 1, 3— remember, 1, 3, 3.

1, 3, 3, 3, 3, 1, open, 1, 3, 1.

Okay. That's without the timing. We're just working on moving the fingers. All right, let's try that again. Don't worry about rhythm yet.

We got one three three again to the three three three one open one three one.

Okay, now let's try and put some timing to it.

So we have remember. To let it into your heart. Okay.

Okay, so the great thing about learning something like this with melody is that you probably instinctively know the rhythm. If you know the song, you know the rhythm. I don't have to tell you that it's a quarter note An eighth note, a half note—it doesn't matter.

Remember to let her into your heart.

Or if you know the melody, you know the rhythm.

Remember to let her into your heart. And then we can move on to our next part.

Then you can start. Right? So if you know the melody, you instinctively know the rhythm, and I don't have to explain that to you, which is why it's great to do stuff like this. So we're coming to our next jump. This is probably the hardest part of the song. So we are ending on the B string on the first fret. We are now going to have to reach our third finger up to the D string. This is our first time playing the D string with our third finger, and we're going to be doing another fun little run. So it's going to be three, move down a string, open two, move down a string, three one. Okay, so back to the D string. It's 3, open, 2 on the string below, and then 3, 1 on the string below. Let's try that together. We're just— don't worry about timing. We're just going to try and play all 5 notes. Ready, and 3, open, 2, 3, 1. Do it again. Ready, get that 3rd finger on the D string. Here we go.

D, open, 2, 3, 1. One more time, just like that.

Ready? Back that third finger on the D string. Ready? And three, open, two, three, one. All right, let's try it a little bit faster now. Ready? Ready? And three, open, two, three, one. And now we're gonna work backwards. Our last phrase is gonna be one on the B string. 3, 2 on the G string, 2, 2 on the D string, and then end on 3 on the D string. So let's try that. So it's gonna be 1, next string 3, 2, next string 2, 2, 3. All right, here we go.

Ready, and 1, 3, 2, 2, 2, 3.

Okay, let's try that one more time from the B string. Get that 1 ready, here we go.

1, 3, 2, 2, 2, 3. One more time. 1, 3, 2, 2, 2, 3.

And then once you're done, all you have to do to start the whole thing over again is play the B note, all right, that first finger on the B string. We're right back to Hey Jude, all right, and then you can just loop this through a couple times. It's very nice, very calm. So the big parts are the jumps in measure 4. There's a jump from 3 to 1, from a G string to an E string, and the jump in measure 7, which is going from the B string up to the D string. All right, so let's try a play through nice and slow. We're not gonna rush it. You can even use the settings cog to slow me down further.

Okay.

And then I'll play it through a little bit faster In real time, let's take it from the top. Ready? One, two, three.

One, two, two. One, three. Open, open. Two, three. One, one. Open. One, three. One, three, two. 1, 3, 3, 3, 3, 1, open, 1, 3, 1.

Here's that jump.

3, open, 2, 3, 1, 1, 3, 2, 2, 2, 3, And then you would jump right back into Hey Jude, right back into that loop.

All right, let's try it again. All right, a little bit faster. Again, if you need to use the settings cog, no worries. Let's take it from the top. Ready? 1, 2, 3.

1, 2, 2, 1, 3. Open, open, 2, 3, 1. 1, open, 1, 3, 1, 3, 2. 1, 3, 3, 3, 3, 1, open, 1, 3, 1, 3, open, 2, 3, 1, 1, 3, 2, 2, 2, 3.

Okay, now let's try it at a full speed. I'm gonna try and play it through a couple times. This way we're gonna loop it through, and if you need to use the settings cog, slow me down as slow as you need to. All right, so we're gonna take it from the top. Not gonna say the numbers this time, we're just gonna play. Ready? Here we go. 1, 2, 3.

Then the loop.

Here it is. Hey June. And you can see I made a few mistakes on that playthrough. I hit a couple notes bad. It happens, okay? If I put in the time and I practiced this for the day, I could probably play it much better, perfectly. I'm doing what we're calling sight reading the music. So I'm trying to play it just knowing the melody and just by reading the tab, all right? So that could be very, very hard for you if you're a beginner because you're looking at the sheet. And you're looking at your hand, and then you're looking at your pick, and then you're looking back at the sheet. So how, if you were a beginner, how would you go about practicing this? If I were learning this song and I wanted to learn to play it through, the first thing I would just do what we did in the beginning. Take it one phrase at a time. Okay, phrase one. Hey Jude. Then take the next phrase. Don't make it bad. Okay, then take a sad song.

Okay. And make it better.

Okay, and I might just start with that. That could be your first practice session is just learning those first four measures. And then my next practice session is taking it and learning the second half.

Remember to let her into your heart.

Okay, you might just want to sit there and practice that, and then do this run.

Da da bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum.

So when I messed up the first time. I actually missed the jump and I muted the note and I had to look down and fix it. So for me, I might practice just going from B to D, B to D, B to D. Okay, working on that jump so that I can sort it out so that when I put it back in context—

Okay.

You'll also notice I'm not looking at my fretting hand, and that's something that's going to come with time. And that's why it can be helpful to play along with something like this where you can see it on screen. But that's what I would do. I break it down line by line and then work on playing through the entire song from the beginning to the end. Now, if you found this lesson video helpful and you want to actually strum along and play to Hey You, go check out my beginner guitar lesson right over there. I'll take you through it step by step. You mostly need 2 chords. Go check it out.