A guitar lesson (YouTube video) by Lauren Bateman teaching how to play Little Big Town’s "Girl Crush." The lesson covers five chords (Em, Am, C, G, F barre), a common six‑eight picking pattern (six notes per chord with down/down/down/down/up/up), finger‑picking equivalents, and dynamic strumming/palm‑muting techniques for building song dynamics. Demonstrations include verse and pre‑chorus playthroughs with a note on adding extra bass notes for a fuller pre‑chorus sound.
Chapters
I got a girl crush. I hate to admit it, but.
I got a hard rush that ain't slowing down.
Hey, guitar enthusiasts, I'm going to show you one of the most popular picking patterns used in modern music today. I'm also going to show you some cool dynamic strumming patterns. So let's get into lesson right now. So this girl crush guitar lesson uses five chords. Most of them are open chords. We have E minor, we have A minor, we have C major, we have G major, and we have an F bar chord. Okay, now I'm going to show you how to pick this song using that popular picking pattern. And if you're not good at bar chords, that's okay. You might want to use the strumming patterns I'm going to show you later in the lesson. So let's talk about this picking pattern. The first thing we're going to talk about is the actual timing. So this song tongue is in what we call six, eight time. That means we're going to be counting to six and it's gonna be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1, 2, 3, 4th, 5, 6. So it's going to have this waltz kind of feel. So before I show you the exact picking pattern, I want to let you know that I am using a hard pick, not my fingers for this. If you want to do finger picking, I'll show you later how to do that. But I like the hard pick because you get a lot of attack on these notes. And when I show you later the dynamic strumming patterns, you're gonna wish you had a pick in your hand. And for each chord, we're gonna be picking six notes. So let's start off with our C chord and our A minor chords because those are our two five string chords. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna start on the fifth string. Okay. We're gonna skip over the fourth string. We're gonna hop down to the third string. Second string, first string, second string. Okay, third string. So it's gonna.
Okay, and when we count this, it would be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1, 2, 3, 4th, 5, 6. And my picking pattern, when I'm picking this, I'm going down, down, down, down, up, up.
So now that you know how to handle the five string chords, let's talk about how we're going to handle the six, six string chord. So now for our six string chords, we're going to be doing pretty much the same exact pattern. The only thing is we're changing the first note. So instead of going five, three, two. One, two, three. We're going six. Okay. Sixth string, six, three, two. One, 2, 3.
Okay, that's it. Whether you're playing an E minor chord or the F chord. Okay. It's all the same. Now a little note on the F chord for some of you, I know, especially if you're just learning this F chord, you might mute that bottom string. So it might sound like this.
If you hear that sound coming in, it means that you're probably not pressing hard enough with the bottom part of the bar. So just put a little extra pressure down here. The squeeze on the bottom two strings. See, mine didn't come through that time. There it is.
Okay. And this way. That'll make the string ring out a little bit better for you. Now, if you're someone who likes to finger pick. I love finger picking. It's the patterns are all the same. There's nothing really different except your thumb is playing those bass notes. So your thumb is either going to play the fifth string or the sixth string, depending on the pattern. And then your first finger owns the third string, your second finger owns the second string, and your finger owns the E string. So if I take that C chord again, it would be thumb, first finger, second finger, third finger, second finger, first finger. So thumb 1, 2, 3, 2, 1. Thumb 1, 2, 3, 2,. 1. On strings 5, 3, 2. 1, 2, 3, 5, 3, 2. 1st, 2, 3. And then for G, same thing. It's just now the thumb has moved up to the sixth string.
So what I'm going to do right now is I'm going to play through a verse and a pre course. But I want you to listen to what I do on the pre chorus because I throw in a little extra spice. So I want you guys to hear it first, and then I'll tell you what's going on there. One, two, three.
I got a girl crush. I hate to admit it But I got a hot rush that ain't slowing down.
I got it real bad. Want everything she has the smile in the midnight laugh she's giving you now.
I want to taste your lips, yeah. Cause they taste like you. I wanna drown myself. Bottle of her perfume I want a long blond hair. I want a magic touch. Cause maybe then you'd want me just as much. I got a girl crush.
So you may have heard a little extra sound came through that pre chorus. So what was I doing? I was taking the same strumming pattern or the same picking pattern that we were using. And instead of just hitting one bass note, I was Trying to get two or three to let more of the sound come through. And this is something that's great. When you're performing, you're trying to build dynamics. And I'm a rhythm guitar player. I perform solo a lot, so I always tried to find ways to add dynamics. And I learned a lot of this stuff when I was busking in the subways. So, for example, if we take that a minor chord, that's where the pre chorus starts. We heard the change there. I'm trying to capture the fifth and fourth strings on that first down pick. I'm trying to get two notes so it was.
Okay.
And then on the second time through, I just played the A minor normal. So here it is again.
Now the F.
Okay, so you can hear that it just adds a little bit more depth as we come into that next pre chorus section of the song. So go back and watch that picking pattern as many times as you need to. But we're going to move on to a really cool, dynamic strumming pattern. And this is why I said you might want to have your pick in your hand. So let me just show you briefly what we're going to do here and I'll show you what we're going to do on the verse and then how we're going to open that up for the next pre chorus.
I don't get no sleep I don't get no peace Thinking about her.
Under your bed sheep so we're sticking with.
A six, eight time here. We have to stay in time. But instead of picking the individual notes, I'm now strumming them. And you can see I'm kind of getting percussive with the guitar. I am using palm muting. Okay. So if you don't know how to do palm muting, I'll put my palm muting lesson video up there. You can go watch that and come back here. But all we're doing is six down strums. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1, 2, 3,4, 5, 6. And I'm really just catching really the bottom three strings of each chord. So the E minor and the G and the F, I would just be catching those bottom three strings. And then C and A minor, I would be catching strings like 5, 4, and 3. And I would just be playing them like this. Okay, so I'm using a palm muting pattern. So you can also hear that I'm being percussive on beats one and beats four. Here it is. Ready, listen.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1, 2, 3, four, five, six.
Now if you don't have the pick, and you were finger picking and you got here. Could you do that? Yeah.
But you can hear there's not as much attack on these top notes. So I'm kind of compensating that for a little bit by using my pinky and really whacking it against the guitar. But if you got this guitar pick really helps out a lot. So that's what I would do on this initial verse section. Now, when we come to the next pre chorus, I'm going to open that up even more because I want to develop this song over time. You know, beginners, the difference between a beginner and a more intermediate player is beginners will tend to keep a song like this. Where intermediate players can build dynamics, they'll either grow a song all the way up or there's ups and downs. So we want to create some more dynamics. So, verse, I'm going to be doing the palm muting.
Okay. And then when we get to the pre chorus, I'm gonna open it up.
You can still hear those accents on one and four.
But I'm now opening up the guitar. So let's hear how this is gonna sound. I'm gonna play through this second verse and pre chorus.
I don't get no sleep I don't get no peace.
Under your bed sheets the way she's whispering the way that she's pulling you in Lord knows I've tried can't get her off my mind I wanna taste her lips get your taste like you I wanna drown myself Bottle of her perfume I want her long blonde hair I want a magic touch, yeah. Cause maybe then you want me just as much I got a girl crush.
Now if you guys enjoyed this, this lesson with all the different picking, then I highly recommend that you go over there and check out my lesson on Hallelujah, where I'll be showing you different picking patterns and how we can incorporate bass walkdowns into our playing.
