Lauren Bateman teaches the four chords of "Let It Be": A minor, G, F, C. She shows a workaround for the F barre chord, covers the fast two-beat changes, and demonstrates a piano-style bass line that walks down F to E to D to C.
Questions this video answers
A minor, G, F, and C.
F major 7 (Fmaj7) played as a C-shape with the top two fingers moved down one string each.
A 16th-note pattern (counts described as "1, 2, and a 3, 4 and a" with per-chord pattern down, down, down, up, down, down, down, up).
Two beats (half measures; chord changes occur every half measure).
F, E, D, C.
Chapters
When I find myself in times of trouble Of America comes to me Speaking words of wisdom Let it be.
That.
In my hour of darkness she's standing right in front of me.
Speaking words of wisdom Wisdom Let it be.
Let.
It be Let it be Let it be Let it be.
Hey, guys, it's Lauren here. We're gonna be doing Let It Be by the Beatles in this video. I'm super excited. I love the Beatles, and this is a great song. And I consider it more. The reason it's in the intermediate section here is because one, we have a bar chord, an F chord. And I'll show you an easy way to get around that. If you can't play bar chords yet, we have the F bar chord. We're going to be using a 16th note rhythm pattern. And also the chord changes in this are half measures, so they're a little bit quicker. But also the chord progression changes a lot in this song. So it's not the same four chords over and over again. So. So you have to know your chords really well to be able to play this song and make it sound good. So let's just talk about the chords first. So you're going to need four chords. You're going to need A minor, G, F, and C. Now, F major is a bar chord. And if you haven't quite mastered bar chords yet, don't worry, we have a fix. You can play an F major 7 chord, which is basically a C chord with the top two fingers on the third and fourth string instead of the fourth and fifth. So take those top two fingers, move the second finger down one, third finger down one, and you have F major 7. It's not going to sound exactly the same, but it will work to get you through the song. Now, like I said, each one of these chords is two beats, so we're going to be switching fairly quickly between the chords. But let's go over the chord progression first before we jump into the actual structure. Strumming pattern. So the intro and the verse have the same pattern that repeats. It's going to be C and G each splitting a measure, followed by A minor and F splitting a measure. C and G splitting a measure again, and then F and C splitting a measure. Now, on that F and C measure, that's where you can put the walk down in if you want to. And I will go over how to do that. So this song is a piano song. It sounds. That walk down is like, I think, a quintessential part of this song. So if you want to include that on the guitar, you can. If not, you can just play the half measure of C and of F and C and you'll be perfectly fine. So that is the measure or that is the chord progression for the verse. In the intro, the chorus, it changes a little bit. We're going to start on A minor, then we're going to go to a G chord and it's going to go F, C. Then we're going to go to C chord, a G chord, and then again F, C. So chorus is just a little bit different from our intro and our verses, but that's the actual chord progression. Now, if you want to go to my website, laurenbateman.com you can go and print out this chord chart that I have on there. I line them up, I make them really nice on the website. So you can go to laurenbatement.com, go to the chord chart section and you can print it out and have it and follow along here. So what we're going to do now is talk about the actual strumming pattern. So the strumming pattern I was using in the intro and the one I'm going to teach you is the 16th note pattern. If you're a beginner, you can always do one strum per chord or two strums per chord. That totally works. Or if you want something a little bit spicier, you can do 1, 2 and 1, 1, 2 and 3, 4.
And 1, 2 and 3, 4,. And 1, 2.
And that works just as well. The 16th note pattern, what we're going to do is pretty much that pattern. We're just adding a 16th note on the end. So it's going to be 1, 2, and a 3, 4 and a 1, 2 and a 3, 4 and a half. So it'll sound like this. And you're gonna do half of the strum is gonna go to one chord and half is gonna go to the other chord. So each chord is gonna be down, down, down, up, down, down, down, up. So I'll start on C. So we have down, down, down, up, down, down.
And that's what you're gonna do. The entire song. It never changes unless you want to go and put in the walk down. So let me just go through that again one more time so that you guys can get a good feel for it. I'll take it from the same part from the verse. So we got 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2 and a 3, 4, and.
A 1, 2 and a 3, four, four and a 1, 2 and a three, four and a one, two and a three, four and a.
So like I said, over that F and C chord, you could put a walk down in. Now, the walk down is just a bass line. It is F, E, D, C. So it's going to be F, D, E, C.
You could play the regular chords if you wanted to. I think it does sound nice with just the.
Ending on the C chord. So it really lets the bass note ring out. But if you. I don't think it sounds as good with the piano. It sounds much better than the guitar with the full chords. But you could do.
So if you wanted to stay in key, it would be F, E minor, D minor.
C.
That's what you could do. So you could do F that way. So we're going to start on the fourth string, third fret with your third finger, that's your F note.
Your second finger then goes to the E note, which is the second fret on the fourth string. And then open fourth string is your D note. So it's F, E, E. And then third finger on the third fret of the second of the fifth string is your C note. So it's.
And at that point I would strum a C chord. So how that's going to go in.
Here, it's going to be speaking words of wisdom.
Let it be.
I think that sounds really nice. So I'd probably play it that way instead of the chords. The chords sound really great on the piano, I think less so on the guitar. So I would go one more time.
Speaking words of wisdom. Let it be.
And then our full strum. Down, down, up, B.
So F, F, D. Sorry, F, E.
D, down, down, down, up.
And that's it. And that's how you can get the walk down into this song, which is a really, really great Beatles song. So that is the entirety of the song. There's nothing too, too crazy about it. Like I said, it's in the intermediate level more, because we have a barre chord, we have a little bit more of an intricate strumming pattern and there's a lot more chord changes going around. So you really gotta know your chords to be able to do this song and do it well. So what I want you to do is just go through this very slowly, pick one of those drumming patterns that's going to be to your level and enjoy the song. And I will see you guys in the next lesson.
