HOW TO PLAY - Silent Night Guitar Lesson Beginner

Hey everybody, Lauren Bateman here. And you can see for my ugly Christmas sweater that we're going to be doing a Christmas song in this video. The one we're going to be doing is Silent Night. I had a lot of students in my paid course who requested this. So here it is. Let's get into the lesson video.

All right, so this song is relatively easy. We are using three different chords here. We're using a G major chord, a C major chord and a D7 chord. Now if you don't know the D7 chord, don't worry, you can use a regular D chord or you can use my special two finger chords. I'll put a link up here to that video. But you can use my special two finger chords as well. They'll all work well in this song. Now, something to keep in mind with this song is that it's going to be in three, four time. A lot of songs you're probably used to have what we call four, four time. Very straight beat. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, four. This song has more of a swing to it, more of a waltz feel. One, two, three. One, two, three. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3. So we're going to have to adjust our strumming and our picking for this song. So first let's start off with the strumming pattern that we're going to use. If you need the chord chart for this song, don't forget to go to laurenbateman.com I'll put a link in the description below so that you can go and grab it and follow along the first chord we're going to start with here we're going to. We have four G chords in a row. So I'm going to go through the chord progression, the order of the chords that we're going to play them in. So we have four G chords, two D7s, two G chords, two C chords, two G chords, two C Chords, two G chords, D7, twice G, twice G. D7 G G. And that's it. That's the whole progression. I know that's it. It's like 20 chords. But once we go through that, that is an entire verse. You just go back to the beginning and you repe. Alright, so this song is just three verses over and over and over again. So once you get that, once you get through that whole progression, you just go back to the beginning. So let's start with the strumming. So I mentioned earlier that this is in 3, 4 time. I would recommend doing some sort of 8th note strumming kind of like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1, 2, 3,4, 5, 6. I think the picking will sound much better for this song, which is what I'm going to teach next. But I want to give people a strumming option just in case you're picking or finger picking isn't the greatest just yet. So it would be. It would sound like this. Silent night, Holy night All is come.

All is bright. So that's what it would sound like. Kind of using, you know, an eighth note strumming pattern there. What I'm going to do now is probably how I would play Silent Night.

Maybe something a little bit slower. But I would use a picking pattern.

So you can hear that. I think more people think of Silent Night as a picking pattern. So that's what I'm going to show you now. Now you can finger pick this if you know how to finger pick it as well. But I'm going to show you with the flat pick in hand. Hey guys, hope you're enjoying this lesson video. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button. This way you can see when more lessons just like this get released. And we're going to start off with how do we pick individual chords. So we're going to start with our G chord and when picking I would recommend counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. I think it's easier to keep track of the timing. So because we're playing six notes. So I would go one, two, three, four, five, six. One, two, three, four, 5, 6. One, two, three, 4, 5, 6.

So that's how I would count that. So we're starting off with the bass note of the chord. So for a G chord that would be the bottom note on the top string, our G note. And we would be going 6th string. 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 6, 3 2. 1, 2, 3,6, 3, 2. 1, 2, 3', 6, 3, 2.

You heard maybe that I hit a bad note. I actually hit the fourth string by accident once. It won't sound bad but we're going to try and stick with a consistent picking pattern here. So that's how we're going to go about playing our G chord. One more time is going to be 6 3, 2. 1, 2, 3, 6, 3, 2. 1, 2, 3. Alright now D7 chord. And don't worry, I'll go up for close ups too so that you guys can see these. The D7 chord or even if you're going to play the D chord, it doesn't matter. It's the same picking pattern. It's going to be 4, 3, 2. 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2. 1st, 2, 3, 4, three, two. 1, 2, 3. And this is what it would sound like for a D chord.

Same thing. It doesn't matter. It'll work for both of them. So that's how we're going to handle our D chord, which is our four string chord. And for the five string chord, the C, we're going to play five, three, two, one, two, three, five, three, two. One, two, three, five, 3, 2. One, two, 3, 5, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3. So G is gonna be six, three, two, one, 2, 3. A C chord is gonna be five, three, two, one thousand two, three. And our D chords are gonna be four, three, two, one, Two, three. Okay, so let's go in for a close up just so you guys can see what's happening with my picking hand. Hey, guys, I hope you're enjoying this video. Make sure to give it a thumbs up so that YouTube shows more students just like you more of my videos. All right, here we go. So we have my picking hand here. You can see my guitar. And the important thing I want to make note is how I am picking the strings. So I am going down, down, down, down, up, up, down, down, down, down, up, up, six, three, two, one, two, three. Okay, this is my G chord. Six, three, two, one, two, three. Same with the C chord. Down, down, down, down, up, up, down, down, down, down, up, up. And then D chord. Down, down, down, down, up, up.

Down, down, down, down, up, up, down, down, down, down, up, up. Now could you do an up on that bass note? You could down picks have much more attack. So because this is a bass note, I would rather have more attack on those bass notes. So I'm going to recommend that you pick it down, down, down, down, up, up. So the G string would be 6, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3. C string would be. Or C chord would be 5, 3, 2, 1, two, three. And the D chord is going to be 4, 3, 2. 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 1,2, 3. So now that we have this all together, let's do a little bit of a demonstration for you guys. I think this is a Christmas song, so I probably won't get hit with copyright issues. Hopefully, if not, I will have to delete this section. But I'm going to play through one of these verses here for you guys so that you can get a feel for it. And just remember, once you go through one verse, you're just going to repeat them the next ones all over again. Ready? Here we go. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1, 2, 3,4, 5, 6. Silent night Holy night All is come.

All is bright Round virgin Mother and child Holy infant so tender and mild Sleep in heavenly peace.

Sleep in heavenly peace.

So there you go. So you can hear that. And some of you might like finger picking, using your thumb and your first three fingers. A little bit of a softer sound. Go for that, too.

Whatever works best for you. Or you can, like I said, always stick with that strumming. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1, 2, 3, four. So there you guys have it. That's a pretty simple lesson on how to play Silent Night with some picking. Make it sound good, do it to your level. Whatever is most comfortable for you guys, and I hope you enjoy it. YouTube's gonna throw up a couple videos over here. Make sure to go check those out. I'll even put a Christmas play playlist over there with a few other Christmas songs for you guys to go check out. Have a good one.