Lauren Bateman leads a short YouTube guitar lesson for "Leaving On A Jet Plane," teaching a simplified arrangement using three chords (A, D, E). She presents beginner strumming options (four down strums or down-down-up) and a more syncopated pattern she uses throughout (counted and described as "down, down, up, up, down, up"). The chord progression mainly alternates A and D with occasional E major appearing for two measures; the intro differs slightly from the repeating progression used for most of the song. The lesson demonstrates timing with counts and plays a verse/chorus to illustrate the pattern.
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Hey, everyone. How's it going? Lauren here. And we're gonna do a great classic called Leaving on a Jet Plane. Very, very simple song. It uses three chords, A, D and E. So a very, very simple song. Most of the transition is just the switch between your A major chord and your D chord, which is actually a really good switch, especially if you're having trouble getting into your D ch. Great song. And then every once in a while we get an E that pops in here for two measures. So it's a fairly repetitive song in terms of the chord progression. But before we get into that, let's go over the strumming that we're going to use. So if you're more beginner and your chord changes aren't quite up to speed, what I would recommend is either doing four down strums per chord, or if you want to start working on your up strums, I would recommend doing down, down, up. Giving yourself time to switch to chords and just focusing on the down, down, up, 1, 2 and 1, 2, and. So it would sound like this.
Up. Now what I'm going to be doing is a little bit more of a syncopated rhythm. This is actually a very common rhythm pattern that you can use on a lot of songs. And you've probably seen that I've used it in a lot of the lesson videos and. But it's a syncopated rhythm. It's that down, down, up, 1, 2, and. And then it's and for. And so it's down, down, up, up, down, up. So we're missing a down strum on the third B. So it sounds like.
4. And. And that's the strumming pattern we're going to use for this song. So it's 1, 2 and M4 and 1, 2 and M4. And so two ups in a row. And we're going to use that for the entirety of the song. So great when we can use the same strumming pattern. So our chord progression is very repetitive. I think it does this for the entire song? It looks like it does. So basically it's an A major chord followed by a D chord. Then we repeat that a D and then two E's, and then it repeats that over and over and over and over again, which is great. I love songs where you have a chord progression that stays consistent, beginning and end. So the chord progression is AD AD Oh, I lied. The intro is two ads. The rest of it, I lied. I'm sorry, guys, I make mistakes. The intro is AD a D EE Once we get into the song, it is a D, a D, a D, E, E. And then it repeats that again. A D, a D, a D, E, E, a D, AD a D, AD a D, E, E for the rest of the song. So only the intro is different, but the rest of the song, three times, we're gonna do a D followed by a double E. So if I go through a verse and chorus for you just to show you how it sounds, it'll sound like this. So we've got 1, 2, 3.
4. My bags are packed I'm ready.
To.
Go.
I'm standing here outside your door One more ad.
To wake you up say goodbye there's our E. Double E.
The dawn is breaking it's early morning.
Taxiway leave no one is small.
I'm some lonesome.
I.
Double.
Ev.
And.
Then I won't go into the chorus because I think you get. I think you get the point. And then we go into the chorus and again AD A D, AD A D EEE and that's it. That's literally the entire song. This is a super, super simple lesson. I wish all songs were this simple, but it's a great song to practice, a great song to work on. Up strums. It's slow. You can pick up the speed if you want to, but it's a very great song. Like I said, to practice that change between A and D. Very, very good. And every once in a while we get the E major that jumps in. And if, like I said, if you want to do down, down, up to work on your.
Strumming. Down, up, down. So it's bags are.
Tagged.
I like the relaxation of the syncopated strumming.
Kind of. It has this nice little bounce to it. So I like using that for the song. So there you go. That is leaving on a jet plane. Very, very simple song. You can get the chord chart for this song@laurenbateman.com and if you enjoyed this lesson, you can always go to laurenbatement.com donate make a donation. I really appreciate when you guys do that, so hope you enjoyed this super simple and easy lesson. I'll see you guys in the next lesson video.
