A beginner-friendly guitar lesson by Lauren Bateman teaching how to play Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman." The lesson covers the main open chords used (A, F# minor as an easy variant, D, E), introduces three strumming patterns from simple to syncopated, explains the verse progression (A → F#m repeated, D, then E held for measures), and walks through a bridge/key-change that uses Dm → G7 → C → Am (with the final repetition switching to A major) before returning to the original key. The instructor emphasizes the intro riff as essential but separates it into a different lesson, offers beginner substitutions (easy F#m, G for G7), and recommends strumming choices for different sections.
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Hey, guitar enthusiast Lauren Bateman here. And in this guitar lesson video, we're going to be going over how to play Roy Orbison's Pretty Woman. Awesome song. Let's get into the lesson.
So I had a student who was like, lauren, you did the lesson on the intro and how to play the riff for Pretty Woman. Can we get the full lesson? So, yeah, here it is. And if you want to go check out that intro lick, I'll put a link up here for you guys to go learn that separately or won't be going over that in this lesson. I'll just be going over the chords in the strumming. So what we're going to do is we're going to first talk about the chords we're going to use for this. We're going to go over the strumming patterns as well as the chord progressions. There is a really interesting key change that happens in this song, so we'll discuss that as well. So let's get started so this song can be played at the beginner level. We're using a lot of really simple open chords here. We have a D, E, there is an F sharp minor, and I know that's a bar chord. But for you beginners, all you have to do is take your A chord and move it down to the bottom three strings. And that is a very easy F sharp minor, simple fix so that you guys can play this song at the beginner level. Later, during our key change, we do get the D minor chord that comes in as well as a G7. If you don't know a G7, that's okay. You can just play a regular G chord. But we'll talk about those chords when we get to the bridge section. So I'm going to give you three strumming patterns starting from the easiest to the hardest. So let's start with the first one. Just going to be very simple four down strums.
One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.
Very, very simple. The next one is we're going to throw in some up strums. So strumming option number two would be.
1, 2, 3 and 4. And 1, 2, 3 and 4. And 1, 2, 3 and four and down, down, down, up, down, up, down, down, down, up, down, up.
That would be the next level. And the hardest one would be our syncopated rhythm. Syncopation means we're missing one of the down strums. So it'd be down, down, up, up.
Down, up, down, down, up, up, down, up, 1, 2, and, and 4 and 1, 2 and, and 4 and 1, two and and 4 and 1, 2 and and 4 and so those are.
The strumming patterns that we're going to use. Choose whichever one works best for your playing level. And now we're going to get into playing the actual song. Hey guys, if you haven't subscribed to my channel yet, make sure to do so so that you know when I release new lessons just like this one. So let's go over the chord progression for the verse. If you need to grab the chord chart. If you want to know what I'm talking about here, go to my website, laurenbateman.com I have all my chord charts there for these songs. I put a link in the description below for you guys to go check that out as well. So the chord progression is going to be A to F sharp minor. Now if you're a beginner, this is a really great change because you can just take that A and move it down to the easy F sharp minor and then right back to A. Okay, it does that twice. So it goes A F sharp minor, A F sharp minor. Then we have a D chord twice, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. And then we have an E chord for four measures. Alright, so really gonna hang out on that E chord. This is what's so great about this song. At least these verses is you get to hang out on some of these chords for a while. So if I went through and played, I'm gonna use the hard, the harder strumming pattern. It would sound like this for this verse. So we got 1, 2, 1, 2, 3.
And then once you play that E minor through, you're gonna go right back into that. Intro licks like I said, if you don't know that intro lick, go check it out. It is an essential part of this song. But it can be hard going between that lick in the chords. So if you, if you're not used to that skill yet, I would just stick to the strumming. And when you get to this intro, the lick section, just hold your strumming until you get back to the lyrics. So once you get through that first verse, we're going to have another little, like I said, intro section. We're going to have another verse and then another intro section. And then we have a really interesting dynamic that happens here. We change keys and if you don't know what that means, keys are just families of chords that sound really good together. But when you listen to this song, when we get to this bridge and this happens on songs and bridges very Commonly, all of a sudden, we're playing chords that we haven't played before in other parts of the song. So it sounds kind of jarring almost. So the chords we're getting to in this section is D minor and then we have a G7. And like I said earlier, if you can't play G7, just play a regular G chord that works. A C major and an A minor. And then towards the end, we get back on our A so that we can change back to the original key. So we're playing D minor, G7, C, A minor. We're doing that one, two, three times, okay? And then the very last time, we play D minor, G7, C and A major, okay? So everything is D minor, G7, C, A minor until the very last time through. We're going to A major instead of A minor. So it's going to sound like this.
1, 2, 3, 4. Pretty woman stop a while.
Pretty woman give your smile to me.
Now here comes the A major.
And then here's another interesting part. We go back to the original key, but our chord progression has changed a little bit. So from this A, we are going to F sharp minor.
Then D major, then an E major.
Then A major again, F sharp minor, D and E. Now the song ends a little bit. Interesting. It ends a lot on that intro and Roy keeps kind of talking over it. Again, you can just do the E.
And I would maybe stick to an eighth note strumming pattern because that lick, that lick is da na na na.
Na na na na na na na na na na.
It's an eighth note.
One and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and up, down, up down up down up down up down up down, up down up down up down up down, up.
And at the very end of the song he goes, pretty Woman. Right. So on the ending, how we're going to tie in and end the song is we're just going to go Pretty Woman. That's a really quick aa aa Pretty woman. All right, so that's how you're gonna end this entire song. If you guys enjoyed this lesson, make sure to give me a like. As a reminder, I do have a guitar course if you guys are interested in checking that out. I'll put a link in Description below for you to go look at that. YouTube is going to show you a couple more videos over here that you might be interested in. So go ahead, click on one of those and I hope to see you guys in another lesson video.
