A beginner-friendly guitar lesson by Lauren Bateman teaching how to play Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight.” The video covers the basic four-chord progression (G, C, Em, D), multiple strumming patterns (including a beginner down/down/down/up/down and a skip-on-2 variant), a verse playthrough with a walk-down embellishment between G and Em, and an optional intro/ending lick with bends and slides on the B and high E strings. The instructor also directs viewers to chord charts on her website and to additional resources (course, tips).
Chapters
Hey, guitar enthusiast Lauren Bateman here in this video we're going to be doing an awesome song by Eric Clapton called Wonderful tonight. Let's get into the lesson.
Now. This is a great song for beginners because it uses four easy chords. The G chord, the C chord, the E minor chord and the D chord. And as always, if you know my easy two finger beginner chords, you can use those on this song as well. So the first thing I'm going to go through are the different chord progressions and the different strumming patterns we can use on this song. And if you guys stick around to the end, I will go over kind of that intro solo part that you guys hear. So definitely stick around to the end of the lesson for that. So the intro to this song is very simple. It's G, D, C, D. Super simple. So let's talk about the strumming pattern. So I'm going to give you a couple strumming pattern options on this. The first one is just to establish all of our rhythm. And this is the beginner pattern that I like to use with a lot of people. You can always just do 4, 4 down strums per chord. But I think adding a little extra up strum in there gives it a little spice. So this strumming pattern will be 1.
2, 3 and 4.
Okay, so it's down, down, down, up, down. It'll sound like this on the.
And that's the great thing about this song is it is very slow paced so it can be a nice and relaxed song. Something that I think really opens up this song as a strumming pattern is to take the one I just showed you, 1, 2, 3 and 4 and just skip strumming on the second beat. So you would count 1, 2, 3, 4. And when you count two, just don't strum, strum on the two. It's going to sound like this.
1, 2, 3 and 4. 1, 2, 3 and four. 1, 2, 3 and Four. 1, 2, 3 and FOUR.
I think it really opens up the song. So let me play through the verse section next. So the verse section is G, D, C, D, G, D, C, D, C, D, G, E minor and a few other chords. If you need the chord chart, you can pull it up on my website if you want to follow along. But I'm gonna use that simplified strumming pattern on this section right now for this verse. So just listen how it sounds with the more open pattern. So we got.
It's late in the evening.
She'S wandering what clothes to wear can you hear that?
Now you can use the other one.
She on her makeup.
And brushes her.
Long long hair so you can see they both work. I like the second one better. So play around with the song and determine which one you like better. Hey guys, I hope you're enjoying this lesson so far. If you aren't subscribed to the channel, make sure to subscribe and turn on the notifications. This way. YouTube will let you know when I release more videos. When? Just like this. So before I do a playthrough for you guys, what I want to do is show you a little addition you can put in. It's called a walk down. And we can play it between our G chord and our E minor chord in the verses. Let me show you what it's going to sound like first. So it's going to sound like this.
Okay? And all we're doing is we're adding a little spice in there. So starting with our G chord, we would strum down twice on the G chord.
And then what we're going going to do, lift up the top two fingers on the G chord. Okay? Get rid of those. The first finger is going to move to the second fret on the top string. This is an F sharp. And I'm muting, just so you guys know, I'm muting that a string below. But the bottom four strings will ring out. Okay? So it's going to be G twice.
F sharp minor twice.
And then E minor chord. So once again we got G twice, F sharp twice.
And E minor. Okay, so it'll sound like this.
Okay, so let me throw this into the verse so that you guys can hear it. I recommend listening first and then going back and playing through with me. So if I start. It's late in the evening here. So we got 1, 2, 3, 4.
It's late in the evening.
She's wandering up close to where.
She.
Puts on her makeup.
And brushes her long blonde hair.
Then she asks me, here's the walk down. Do I look alright? And I say, yes.
You look wonderful tonight.
And that's where that little intro lick would come in. You can play the chords over it if you want to, or you can jump into the next part of the tutorial where I'm going to show you how to play that little lick. Now this lick can be played on an acoustic guitar. Depending on how thick your strings are, it might be hard for you to do the bends. But let me just play it for you quickly. This is what we're going to be learning.
Okay? So that's the little lick that would go in the intro or at the end of the verses here. So what we're doing is we're bending the 10th fret on the B string and we're trying. It's much easier to do on an electric than an acoustic. You're trying to get it to sound like the 12th fret on the B string. We call this a whole step bend. And we're just going to put all three fingers. So I'm going to have a first finger on the eighth fret, second finger on the ninth fret, third finger on the tenth fret, and I'm going to push up on this string. Ok. It's going to change the sound. So here's my regular note here when I bend.
So that's the first part. It's.
That's just bending and releasing the bend. Okay. Alternatively, you could slide up and back to the 12th fret.
If that's easier for you on an acoustic. Do that. You can slide 12, 10 to 12.
Okay, I'm going to do the bend because that's how Eric plays it. So we're bending that 10th fret, releasing it, and then lift up your other two fingers. Your first finger is already in place on the eighth fret. So it's.
And then back to the tenth fret. Okay, that's our first four notes. The first two are the bend and the release.
And then we're going to do that same thing again. We're going to bend and release.
8Th fret. Except this time the second finger is going to come up to the G string and play the ninth fret. So it's the same lick. It's just the ending note is different. So we've got.
That's the first one and then the second one.
Okay, one more time.
Okay, so that's the first part. Now we got another bend. We do it again.
Okay, to the 8th fret, 10th fret, 12th fret.
13Th fret. Now come down to the E string. 12th fret, 10th fret. So that whole line is going to be 8. I'm sorry, 8, 10, 12, 13 on the B string, 12th fret and 10th fret on the E string. So if I do it from the bend, it's going to sound like this. Here's the bend.
Okay, one more time with the bend. And then I'll play the whole thing. Just the third section.
Okay. So here's the first lick.
Second lick.
There's the whole thing. One more time through. Ready? Here we go.
Hey, guys, I hope you enjoyed this lesson feel free to leave me a tip in the tip jar over at my website. Or if you're interested, I do have a beginner guitar course. I'll put a link in the description below. You guys can go check that out. YouTube's gonna pop up a couple more videos over here. Go check those out. And I hope to see you guys in another lesson video real soon.
