How to Strum My Sweet Lord on Guitar

My sweet love.

My sweet love.

Hey, guitar enthusiasts. So excited. Today we have a George Harrison song. My Sweet Lord. A lot of you guys have been asking for this, but did you guys know that this song is actually two separate songs in one? I'm going to show you exactly what I mean in this lesson.

Now, I would definitely consider this song a little bit more in the intermediate realm because there's going to be a lot of chords. We're also going to be doing some diminished chords, which might be awkward for you guys. I know they sure are awkward for me because I don't do them that very often. But let's talk about the chords we're going to be using. And before we do that, just want to make a little note here. You see my little kaiser capo here on the second fret of my guitar? So all of our chords are going to be relative to the second fret key capo chords. We're going to be using E minor. We have an A major. Okay. We have a D chord. We have a B minor. Okay. We're also going to have a B7 chord. Okay. Which, with this capo here, can be a little bit tricky for some of you. So I would figure out the best way you feel comfortable doing that B7 around the capo. We also have a D sharp diminished chord to contend with. Also kind of an awkward one around that capo. So that's all the chord chords we're going to be using for the first half of this song. Like I said, it's technically two songs in one. We're going to learn a lot more chords in the second half of this song. But first, let's talk about our strumming pattern that we're going to use. So this strumming pattern is what we call a hopped rhythm. It's a hopped rhythm because we're going to feel like on that second chord, when we go to change, we're rushing into it. Let me play it for you and see if you can hear that.

Can you hear when I switch over to that A chord, it all of a sudden sounds like really in your face. It almost feels like you're jumping into that chord. Listen again.

So it's a very interesting dynamic because you're changing on the up strum versus a down strum. So let's break this apart for you guys. So the two chords I'm going to be showing you here, we have an E minor chord and an A major chord. The E minor chord is going to be our first chord, and the strumming pattern is going to be 1, 2, 3, and 4. Okay, so that's what we're going to play on the E minor.

1, 2, 3, and 4.

Played as down, down, down, up, down. Okay, and then to finish off this measure, there's one more up at the very end, and that's where we're going to change to our A chord. So the E minor is going to.

Be 1, 2, 3, and 4. And.

Okay, let's do that again. Because that's the tricky part is just getting that. That A chord switched over.

1, 2, 3, and 4. And again, 1, 2, 3, and four. And.

And then once you do that one, starting into the next measure, we're not going to do a down strum on the one beat of the first measure. We're just going to go right into it with another up strum on the. And so it's going to be and.

2, 3, and 4.

And. Okay, again, second measure.

And 2, 3, and 4. And up, down, down, up, down, up.

Now we put those together.

It's going to be 1, 2, 3, and 4. And 2, 3, and 4.

And.

A little faster again.

So you can kind of get the feel of this rhythm and just do that when you're learning it. Start slow and then pick up the speed slowly as you go. Now, there are a lot of chords to this song, but a good thing is we're usually alternating between pairs of chords. So in the intro, if we go through that, we start off by alternating between E minor and A over that strumming pattern.

So 2, 3, 4.

Okay, and you're going to do that four times. And then the next chord pair you're going to be rotating between is a D chord and a B minor chord. So you would go D as your first chord.

Then B minor gets the hop.

But it's this last measure where things start going a little haywire. So let's talk about what's going to happen here. We're starting off with a D chord, and that's going to be a full measure. And then we have this D sharp diminished chord that we're gonna play to a B7 and then to E minor. Okay, so let's talk about that diminished chord. Because they're not very popular in contemporary music. In popular music, every once in a while, they show up. And like in this song, they're very popular in classical or, like, progressive music. They have a very, very dissonant.

Very harsh sound to them, but they resolve very nicely to our I chord or the key that we're playing. The Song in. So let's talk about how we're going to do that. So this chord, the easiest way, we're starting at a D. Okay? So we're coming out of D major. What you're going to do is this. First and third finger are going to move to the first fret, and then we're going to move everything up one string. Okay, Then our third finger is coming in on the third string, second fret, and our pinky's coming in on the bottom string, second fret. Okay, so looks like you're kind of doing pinky gymnastics again with this capo. It could be a little awkward. So if you're feeling a little awkward, don't worry. That's normal. I felt awkward the first time I did it, too. Okay, so if we go back to our D chord, so it's D, lift up the third finger, slide the fingers back into the first fret, lift them up one string each, and then third finger on the third string, second fret, Pinky on the first string, second fret. And we have this D sharp diminished chord. Now, the great thing about this chord, as awkward as it is, it does make getting into our B7 chord the next chord very easy. Our pinky and our third finger are already in place. So if you lift up the first and second fingers, second finger comes up to the fifth string, second fret, first finger goes to the fourth string, first fret, and you've got your B7. So you can just practice going from this D sharp diminished. Now you can see my third finger is making some adjustments because of the spacing, but it's a relatively easy chord change. And then obviously, to go From B to B7 to E minor is a very, very easy chord change. So strumming wise, what I would do there is just do the first strumming pattern. I would just go 1, 2, 3, and 4. And then when we go to D sharp diminished, I would do 1, 2, and A. Down, down, up, then B7, down, down, up, and then E minor. We're going back. This is the first measure of the next pattern because now we're going back to E minor to A.

So that's the craziest part of the song. Let's do that one more time. So it's going to be D1, 2, 3 and 4. And. And then switch over to your diminished chord.

1, 2 and 3, 4. And 1, 2, 3 and 4. And. And 2, 3 and 4. And.

And then once you do that, you're back into the chorus where we're going Back from A to E. And then again you go back through B minor to D with the diminished chord and so forth and so on. And before I get into the second part of the song, let me just do a little quick playthrough on the intro. Because once you play the intro, you can play the entire part of this first section.

So as you guys probably heard, the diminished chord is not something I use very commonly. So my playing might have been a little bit sloppy. And that's okay, because remember, on this channel, we're not about being perfect. We're about having fun with our guitar. So now, I told you this song was two separate songs in one. So we have to go to the second half of this song where all these chords we just learned, we're going to throw them out the window because they're not going to exist anymore for the rest of this song. So after the third chorus of the song, we get the part where it.

Goes, you know, hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

So where all the hallelujahs come in. So this next verse is going to be very, very different. It's going to be a D chord for two measures, a D7 chord for two measures, a B7 chord for two measures. And then we kind of change keys completely. So what we're doing here is this is what we call modulation in music. We're going from one key and we're moving into a completely different key, which means we need a whole whole set of chords. So in this song, we're moving everything one whole step up or two notes. So if this song, if we were playing D.

Moving two steps up, we'd have to go from D to D sharp to E. Okay? So that's what's happening here. So we're starting on D and we're going to play the Same rhythm.

And B7, B7.

Which gives us a great opportunity to go to this E chord now. Okay? And now we've come to that tricky part of the song where we're going to do an E chord for one measure. So this would be as if we were doing that D chord, okay? So now we're playing E and it's.

Going to be 1, 2, 3, and 4.

And instead of D sharp diminished, so if we move it up one fret, that would be E diminished. And if we moved it up another fret, so remember, two notes, it would be F diminished, okay? Because there is no E sharp. So be F diminished. We went from D sharp diminished to E diminished to F sharp diminished. Unfortunately for us, it's just a shape. So we can just move that shape up. Now the next chord, we're going to play off of that. Instead of playing a B7 chord, we're going to a C sharp 7 chord. Fortunately, we can still use the B7 shape here.

Okay.

Because there is a B note in this chord. So we can just let that B string ring out. You could, if you wanted to, you know, come up here and play a C sharp 7. Why make it more difficult than you have to? Your fingers are already here. Just, you know, it works fine. Just play C sharp seven there. So we're going from F diminished to C sharp 7.

And then when we come out of this, instead of playing E minor to A, we're playing F sharp minor.

To B.

And that's why I said this song's a little bit more intermediate because there's a lot of bar chords in this second section of this song. Now a note on the B chord, if you find this double bar difficult, you could go between F sharp and come up to the ninth fret here and play.

A B major chord here. You could go.

You can hear it's a much brighter sounding B than the one down here. But if you. You have trouble with this one, just want to let you know that that is an option for you guys. Now, the verses from here on out, instead of being D to B minor, are now going to be E to C sharp minor. Okay? So E.

And then we would come to our E chord, one measure.

The F diminished chord.

C sharp 7, and then F sharp minor to B.

So now let me play through that entire transition for you guys just so you can hear how we go from the E minor to A and then transition into a completely new key. Once again, these diminished chords are not my strength. So if I butcher it, I'm very, very sorry, but it is what it is.

Really want to see love.

Really want to see your love but it don't take long My love.

My sweet love.

So now you guys can see how this song is actually two very different songs in one because of the two different keys. And if you are a huge Beatles fan like I am, you see my Harrison guitar over here. Well, guess what? I have a whole Beatles YouTube playlist over there with a bunch of different Beatles songs. Go check that out and I'll see you guys in a lesson video real soon.