How to Play Wild Horses on Guitar - Step-by-Step

Hey, guitar enthusiast. Lauren Bateman here. And we're going to be going over how to play Wild Horses on the guitar like the Rolling Stones, or very close to how the Rolling Stones played it. So we're going to start off with our chords, talk about the strumming, and we're going to take it all step by step. So let's start with our chords. Now, this song is going to have an A minor chord, a C chord, a D chord, an E minor chord, and a G chord. And it also features two very common bar chords, which is going to be B minor and F. Okay. And if you're not the greatest at playing F, you can use F major 7. It's a little bit open, but I think it would work with this song. And it's a great way to remove one bar chord. The F only shows up in the choruses. The B minor shows up very frequently with in the chorus. All right, so if you're not good at that B minor, you should work on your G to B minor chord change. Just going back and forth, working on the timing of that. Now, the great thing about this song, strumming wise, is that you can keep it very open. Now, I'm going to give you some frameworks to work within. I'm going to tell you kind of what I'm hearing, what I like to do, but also understand that there probably is a lot of improvisation going on. So the strumming pattern might be changing slightly, and it might only be by one strum or two strums. Okay. So with a song like this, I think the most important part is really the dynamics, but we're going to talk about that in a few moments. Let's start with the intro section. So I'm going to tell you what I kind of hear on the recording when I listen to. To this intro section. All right? And I'm also going to show you a little lick part if you're interested in learning that as well. So for our intro, we have a G, A minor G, A minor G. So very, very simple chords to work on strumming with. Great. So what I'm hearing, I have a note here that says what I hear. And what I hear is 1, 2, A, 3, and 4, and. All right, so it's down, down, up, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down. That's kind of what I'm hearing for this intro. And again, there is a second guitar that comes in, so you might also be hearing that as well. Now, this is a great strumming pattern, I think it's pretty open. It's a good foundational pattern, but I think things start changing as we get into the song more. So I really only hear it in that intro section, but you could use that for the entire song. And that's what we'll use for the intro here. So once again, it is 2, A, 3, and 4. And so a lot of down strums. 1, 2, A, 3 and 4. And. All right. And you're just going to be switching between G and a minor. 1, 2, A, 3 and 4. And 1, 2, A, 3 4. And 1, 2, a 3 and 4. And 1, two, a 3 and 4. And one, two, a, three and four.

And.

Very nice, even kiltered strumming pattern that you can use over the intro. Now, there is a second guitar. There's other parts that come in over here, but there's one that's. That's pretty fun to play if you want to. And if you're playing with a friend, you could include. So it sounds like this.

Okay.

Just a little. And I think it's play more. It sounds maybe more like electric, but you can play it on an acoustic as well. I have my first finger here on the 10th fret and my second finger on the 12th fret of the B string. Okay. The first one. 10th fret of the E string, 12th fret of the B string. It kind of looks like a reverse power chord. Okay. And we're gonna go 1 and 2, 3 and 4. Okay. 1 and 2, 3 and 4. And then we're gonna slide back two frets to 8 and 10. And then it's going to be one slide back one more to. What's that? 7 and 8. And that's going to be 1, 2. So it's going to be 1, 2. Okay. So it's 1 and 2, 3 and 4 dot 1, 2. Okay. It plays, I think, over the A minor chords. All right, so you can play it a couple times over the intro. You'll hear it if you listen to the recording. So it's now I hear. When I listen to the recording, to me, it sounds more like he's sliding. I hear that. I hear that in the recording. If you can slide, awesome. It'll sound more like the record. If you can't just play the notes regularly, it'll still sound good. You just won't get that slide sound. But take a listen to it. You'll hear that little. You're going to hear this. You'll hear that underneath. And that's how I know it sounds like he's sliding into the notes versus just playing them. So that wraps up our intro, but now things are going to open up a little bit in the verse. And I love this song because you can be a lot more relaxed with it. And I think the important part about this song is the dynamics and making sure that the verses come down compared to the choruses. All right. When my guitar teacher taught me this, that was something we really emphasized on this song, was really bringing down these verses. So you could continue to use this first strumming pattern. 1, 2, A, 3, and 4. And you can continue to use that over this chord progression, which is B minor, G, B minor G, and then A minor to C. Okay, you can continue to use that. I prefer to open it up just a little bit more. So for me, I prefer to keep it really open. Kind of like 1, 2, and 4. And. Okay, so it's 1, 2, 3, and 4. And so I'm really letting that second note ring out or that second strum. 1, 2, 3, and 4, and 1, 2, 3, 3, and 4.

And.

And sometimes I play with the timing. So on that one, I left out the second strum, too. Okay, so this is where, as I said, you can improvise a little bit more. But I'm going to try and stick with this strum, which is going to be 1, 2, and 4, and 1, 2, 3, 4.

And.

I think it's nice and open, and it leaves a lot of room to breathe. This is a ballad. It's not. We're not in a rush here. And one thing that's very hard for guitarists to switch over to is like, they think they have to strum for everything. And sometimes it's the emptiness, it's the. The absence of strumming that creates a lot of emotion in music. And I think this is one of those songs that kind of calls for that. We'll definitely pick things up in the chorus. But before we do that, I want to make a note because there's going to be some measures where we're going to have one chord for three beats, and the last chord is going to be one beat. Okay. If your chord changes are not fast enough, you could just ignore the last chord. But I'm going to show you what I mean. So on this second line, we have the A minor chord. All right. All the things you wanted. So we'd have our regular strumming pattern. And then above, let you. You'll see there's the three Cs. So three beats of C and then one beat of D so it'd be 1, 2, 3 and 4. And so we're just on the D for the last two down strums that one beat. So the 1, 2, 3 and 4, and 1, 2 and 4, and. And then when we jump right back into the G, we're on the regular strumming pattern. Let me play this through so that you can hear how it's going to sound. Okay, so I have to make a confession and it's important for you to know this. I have been trying to play this verse as an example for you, and I just tried it four times in a row and I could not play it because my brain was too focused on the strumming pattern versus the singing. Okay, so when you're trying to sing and play a song at the same time, you have to focus on the singing. The strumming has to go on autopilot. So I am going to improvise my strumming. I'm going to try and keep it open and as close to the strumming pattern I showed you, but I will be able to play it if I do not think about the strumming pattern. Let's give it a try. 1, 2, 3, 4.

M childhood living. It's easy to do the things you.

Want them.

About them for you. Oh graces lady you know I am. You know I can let you slide through my hand.

There we go. I did it. Okay, so that was the verse. And you can hear. There's a lot of room for fluidity and improvisation. And I strum this based on. It's such an emotional song. I strum, strum it based on how I feel, which is why it's so hard for me to stick to a specific strumming pattern. But you can hear kind of the most important part is that first down on all the chords. As long as you do that, that's the most important part. You can do whatever you want after that. As long as you just leave it open. You keep your hand moving. The hand is the timekeeper. And as long as this is in time, you. You can strum whatever you want and it will sound good. So after the verse, we're going to jump to the chorus. This is the strumming pattern I would use for the chorus. Very similar to what we did in our intro. Just a couple extra strums. Okay, so if I'm starting on a minor here, it's going to be 1, 2, and a, 3 and 4, e. And. Okay, we're in a chorus. It's going to get Bigger, it's going to get more exciting. Our strumming should get bigger and more exciting with it. So it's down, down, down, up, down, down, down, up, down, up. Okay, 1, 2 and A, 3 and 4, 8 and A. Down, down, down, up, down, down, down, up, down, up, down, down, down, up, down, down, down, up, down. Okay, so that's going to be our strumming pattern we're going to use over the chorus. Those split measures also come in the chorus here. They're basically every other measure. Okay. So we have A minor and then we have a C chord with a D. Then we have a split measure of G and F. So on the split measures, I'm going to opt to do down, down, up. So it'll be down, down, down, up, down, down, down, up, down. Okay, and the great thing about the strumming pattern we're using for the chorus, the four iana, the down, up, down, up is what we're going to strum on those chords that only use one B. Okay, so let me play through the course here to put it all together for you so that you can see. So it's going to be A minor C going into D, a split measure of G and F and then C going into D again. And then we're just going to repeat that ending on the C on the very end of the chorus. All right, so this is going to come alive a little bit more so you can even strum a little heavier, make the guitar sing more. All right, so we've got one to. Here we go. Em.

Wild horse couldn't drag me away. Wild horse couldn't drag me away.

Now we end this queen chorus. We're jumping back into B minor. We want the guitar to come back down. All right, so we want the dynamics to come down when we come back out of that chorus because we don't want to keep the energy up here. Okay. We want to come back down for the verse to relax. And then when we come back into the chorus, we're going to bring the song back up again. Now, there is a solo section here where we change up the chord progression a little bit. Strumming, you can keep the same as the chorus, we're going from an F chord to C, so it's F, C, F. And then we have the C on three beats, one beat on D, and then just two measures of G. Nothing else crazy. We got another verse, a chorus, an instrumental verse, and then the ending of our song. But that is the foundation of the entire song. And now what I'm going to do is I'm going to play this through beginning to end, so that you have something to play along with. And you can always use the settings cog to slow me down. This is a slow song, it's a ballad, so hopefully you'll be able to keep up. But if not, don't worry. Practice your strumming patterns. Come, come back. And then use the settings cog to play along with me. Now I want to note again. There's going to be a lot of improv in this because I'm going to be singing and playing at the same time. I'm going to try and keep to those strumming patterns, but there could be very slight or small variations that I'm going to use depending on how I feel. And if you find yourself changing the strumming pattern, that's a good thing. That's not a bad thing. It means you're starting to feel the music. And eventually when we play guitar, we want to feel the music instead of always reading the music. All right. And that's what I go over in my expressive rhythm and strumming course, if you're interested in that. But let's get started with the playthrough. 1, 2, 3, 4.

Childhood living is easy to do the things you won't tell about them for you. Grace this lady you know I am. You know I can't let you slide through my hand. Wild horse couldn't drag me away. Wild wholesale Couldn't drag me away. I watched you suffer a dull in aching pain and now you decided. To show me the same. There's no sweeping exists or upper stage lines make me feel bitter treat you unkind. Wild ful Couldn't drag me away. Mouthful s Couldn't drag me away Solo Ready? I know I dreamed you sin and lie I have my freedom I don't have much time. Faith has been broken the tears must be cried let's do some living and after we'll take side. Wild. What couldn't drag me away. Wide them someday, Sam. Couldn't drag me away. We'll ride them someday.

I hope you got a lot out of this wild horses lesson, especially with dynamics and strumming and performance too. Now, if you're looking for another great song that has some really, really cool strumming, I highly recommend checking out my night moves lesson over here by Bob Seeger. It has some really cool kind of anticipated strumming, super fun song to play. Go check that out right over there.