In this full‑length YouTube guitar lesson, Lauren Bateman teaches viewers how to play Cass Elliot’s “Make Your Own Kind of Music” using a capo on the 2nd fret to avoid bar chords, making the song accessible to beginners. She introduces the core chords (A, D, G, Am7) and offers simplified fingerings, such as using an open‑A shape for the F♯ minor chord and an optional Asus4 “spice” chord. Lauren explains the song’s rhythmic structure, covering standard 4‑beat strumming patterns, split‑beat (2‑beat) variations, and a triplet feel at the end of the chorus. She demonstrates how to count and execute each pattern, emphasizes relaxed hand technique, and reminds players to retune after placing the capo. Throughout, she engages two participants (Speaker B and C) who count, sing, and follow along, creating an interactive play‑along experience. The lesson concludes with a full run‑through of the song, a suggestion to slow the video if needed, and a plug for her other lesson on “These Boots Are Made for Walking.”
Chapters
Hey guitar enthusiasts, we have a song here by Cass Elliot, Make Your Own Kind of Music. Such a fun song, and what I've done is I've put a capo on the 2nd fret to make it even easier for you to play. We're gonna eliminate all the bar chords, so even if you're a beginner, you'll be able to play this song. Now the chords we're going to need for this song are going to be an A chord, a D chord, a G chord, an A minor 7 chord, which shows up on the bridge. Now, if you've never seen that before, it's the 1st finger on the 1st fret of the B string, and it's the 2nd finger on the 2nd fret of the D string.
Okay?
And we're playing these relative to the capo, so it means now with the capo on, this becomes the 1st fret, 2nd fret, 3rd fret. Okay? And I think I said a D chord. The only other one that's kind of weird that we're gonna show you a fix for— there is an F sharp minor in this song. Okay, but if you're just getting started, you can just take your A chord and play it on the bottom 3 strings. And guess what? You have an F sharp minor. Okay, so you don't need a bar chord for this. You can just take the A chord, which you're already using in a lot of this song, and you can just move it down one. Okay, and there's gonna be one more chord that I'll show you if you want to add in a little spice. All right, if you're getting into that late beginner stage, you want to add some spice, I'm going to show you how to do that. In a little bit, but let's get started with the strumming patterns. So this song starts out with a little bit of picking, but we're not going to do that. We're just going to hold on to a D chord. Okay, that's what they're playing over. And what we're going to do is we're just going to strum 1, 2, and 3, and 4, and down, down, up, down, up, down, up. Nice and gentle.
1, 2, and 3, and 4.
Remember to relax your hand.
1, 2 and 3 and 4 and down, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, down, up, down, up, down, up.
All right, so that's the majority of what we're gonna be using for chords that are 4 beats. Okay, so if you go over to my website, laurenbateman.com, you check out the chord chart over there, you'll see there's chords and then there's chords in brackets. Okay, the chords in brackets are 2 beats each. Okay, so a regular chord would be 1, 2, 3, 4. All right, and a half chord would be 1, 2 1, 2. Okay, so 2 beats on one chord, 2 beats on the other chord. Now just a note, because I had to do it after I heard that chord that I just played— when you put the capo on your guitar, sometimes it changes the tensions on the string. So when you put your capo on, just check your guitar, make sure it is still in tune, which is what I did. Now my chords sound a little bit better. All right, so as I was saying, full chords 4 beats, split chords 2 beats. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna use the strumming pattern I just showed you For all of those chords that you see just as four beats. When we see the two beat ones, I'll give you two options. Okay? So if you just want to keep it simple, I think this works really well because when you get to the chorus, there's this really strong like ch ch ch ch one two three four is a very strong four beat. So what I would do is on the D chord, I would do one two and three and four and and then when it gets to the G chord, I would go down down down down.
So one two three four.
But you gotta make your own kind of music.
That works really great. I think it's fun, keeps it peppy. The other thing, if your chord changes are a little faster, is you could just do a little down, down, up, down, down, up.
So that instead of just going down, down, down, down, it's gonna be down, down, up, down, down, up, down, down, up, down, down, up.
So that same part, you gotta Make your own kind of music.
Sing your own special song.
Okay, so that's what we're gonna do on those split measures.
Down, down, up, down, down, up.
But that's not the only thing that's crazy about this song. So towards the end of the chorus, there is a different timing. Okay, so, so far we've got for 4-beat chords, we got 1, 2 and 3 and 4 and 1, 2 and 3 and 4 and. Or for split beats we have 1, 2, 1, 2, or 1, 2 and 3, 4 and 1, 2 and 3, 4. At the very end, the very last line of the chorus, there is a timing change. It's this triplet feel. I'm not gonna worry about counting it because the great thing about this song is it lines up with the lyrics perfectly. Alright, so you're gonna do 3 down strums per chord, and it's gonna be on the D chord, One, two, three, and then it's gonna be the G chord. One, two, three, and then we have on my sheet it says an A sus four, but you can just play an A chord for now. I'm gonna show you that little spice in a second. We're just doing three on A. One, two, three, A, and it's so even if nobody else sings along, it's a very like puppy feel. So it's gonna be make your own kind of music even if no.
Everybody else sings along.
Okay, so let's try that again very slow for Make Your Own Kind of Music.
We got 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2 and 3 and 4 and down, down, down, down, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1.
Okay, and you're gonna see on my sheet there's this little 2/4. Just letting you know that that chord, which you can play as an A or an Asus4, which I'm going to show you shortly, is only 2 beats. Okay, there's one measure where it's just 2 beats, and then we go back to the 4-count on the A's. So let me just play through this chorus so that you can hear the whole thing, and I'm going to show you a little bit of that spice. What is that Asus4 chord? I'm going to show you after this. Here we go. Ready? 1, 2, here we go.
Make your own kind of music. Sing your own Make your own special song. Make your own kind of music. Even if nobody else sings along.
So on that section you heard, I was just doing 2 down strums on that G and that A chord. I think it sounds great. I really like it. So let's talk about this little spice. Okay, so you saw this Asus4. What is that? Kind of a different little chord. It's a very pretty sounding chord. It's an A chord, except you're going to reach with your pinky. Ooh, these ascending chords, they have a beautiful sound to them. You're going to reach with your pinky to the 3rd fret. Or so, yes, the 3rd fret of the B string. A 3rd fret relative to the capo. So it has this kind of open feel to it. OK, so we're coming from—
because it Hangs them up.
All right, I'm using the easy F sharp minor.
Hangs them up to see someone like you.
Okay, that's one way to go about doing it. Here's an easier way to go about doing it. Okay, so we got F sharp minor. Okay, what I want you to do is I just want you to try the 4-finger G chord. Okay, so you see I got my 3rd finger, my pinky on the bottom 2 strings. I guess it's, it's a slightly, slightly brighter G. I do think in the song they are using the regular G, but I'm going to show you how to get into that Asus4 easier. So we got F sharp minor, the bright G, and look, my 3rd finger is already on that note for Asus4. So you can just move your 1st and 2nd fingers in place and you got Asus4.
Because it hangs them up.
See someone like this, and then you slide the third finger back to the A. Okay, so you're only on that A sus for one measure.
One, two, and three, and four, and A.
Okay, and the same thing on that triplet. Even if well, guess what? Your D chord. Look at that. Your third finger is already in place to rotate. Take into that G chord.
1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2 and 3 and 4 and 1, 2 and 3 and 4 and.
So you can hear it just adds a little bit of a spice musically. It fits the song very well because that's what they are doing in the song, um, but it sounds so nice. So if you want to try that, those are some different ways to kind of pivot into that chord to make it a little bit easier if you want to throw in that spice. If you're not ready or you don't want to, just play an A major chord, no problem at all. All right, so I'm gonna play through beginning to end. If I'm going too fast still, use the settings cog to slow me down. I apologize because I'm not Cass Elliot, so I'm gonna do the best I can with the vocals on this, but it's such a fun song and I hope you enjoy playing it along with me. Let's get started.
1.
2, 3, 4.
Nobody can tell ya, there's only one song worth singing. They may try to sell ya, 'cause it hangs them up to see someone like you.
But you gotta make your own kind of music. Sing your own special song. Make your own kind of music. Even if nobody else sings along, you're gonna be knowing.
The loneliest kind of lonely. It may be rough going just to do your things. The hardest thing to do.
But you gotta make your own kind of music. Sing your own special song. Make your own kind of music, even if nobody else sings along.
So if you cannot take my hand, and if you must be going, I will understand.
'Cause you gotta make your own kind of music, sing your own special song, make your own kind of music even if nobody else sings along.
I hope you enjoyed playing along with me, and I hope my voice didn't throw you off too much, I have a great lesson on These Boots Are Made for Walking by Nancy Sinatra. It has this really, really cool intro. If you enjoyed this song, you're really going to enjoy that lesson over there. Go on and check that out. We're going to go through it step by step.
