Lauren Bateman teaches a guitar lesson for The Beatles' "Norwegian Wood." She instructs viewers to place a capo at the 2nd fret and explains rhythmic feel (song in 3/4; an easier 6/8 counting option is offered). She demonstrates two strumming approaches: all-downs counted in six (accenting beats 4 and 6) and a more common 1-and-3-and pattern that adds up-strums. Chord layout for the intro/verse centers on D (with a quick-measure D → C → G change), and the verse progression later includes D minor (played twice), G (twice), D minor (twice), E minor, then A. Finally she teaches a sitar-style lead (capo still on 2) with fret-by-fret finger guidance: starting on the low E string relative to the capo at 5, 5 slide to 7, then 3,2,open, etc.
Chapters
Hey, everybody, Lauren Bateman here. Welcome back. In this video, we're going to do some Norwegian Wood by the Beatles. So I'm so excited for this. Let's get into the lesson.
Now. If you need the chord chart for this lesson, I'll put a link below in the description where you can go to my website, get that, and then come back here so that this all makes sense to you. You. For the version of Norwegian Wood that we're going to be doing, we're going to need a capo at the second fret on your guitar, so make sure that you have that. What we're going to do is we're going to go over how to play the verse, how to play the chorus, and at the end of this video, I'm going to teach you how to play the sitar kind of intro that you hear playing in the background. So stay tuned for that as well. So the chords for the intro and the verse are the same for. We've got a couple of D chords and then we have a measure where there's a D, C and a G chord splitting a measure. So that chord change is going to happen over a very, very quick period of time. And then we're going to go back to D. So let's talk about this intro first and then we'll jump into the verse. So this song is in three, four, not four, four. So we're only going to be counting to three as opposed to four beats. Okay. The easiest way to strum this, if you're not really keen on up strums, would be probably better to count it in six, eight. One, two, three, four, five, six. And accent the four and the six. And do all down strums. One, two, three, 4, 5, 6. One, two, three, Four, five, six. One, two, Three, four, five, six. That'll get you through the entire song, no problem. But if you'd like to play it the way that I usually play it, we're going to be throwing in some up strums. So. So we're going to have a down on the one and then we're not going to have another up strum until the and after two. So it's going to be one and three and. Okay, one and three and down, up, down, up. So it's down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down. So you can hear now we're starting to get that feel for Norwegian Wood. So once again, it's 1 and 2 or. And 3 and 1 and 3 and down, up, down, up. And then it starts looping once you get to the next D. So we're going to do that strumming pattern twice. And then in the third measure, we're going to be splitting a D, a C, and a G chord. Now the D we're just going to hit on the one. Okay. And then the C is going to get the. And three. And then the G is going to get. And. And then back to D. So the whole intro is going to sound like this.
So that's how quick we got to change from that C and G chord. So it's down, down, down, down, then D. Okay, so all those are getting down, down, down, down, down, down. So that intro carries into our next section, which is the verse. So we're going to play that again twice for the verse. And then after that, our chord progression is going to change a little bit. We're going to go to a D minor chord. Oops, that's not even a D minor at all. There it is, D minor. So we're going to play D minor twice. Then we have a G chord twice D minor, twice E minor, and then A. So same strum.
So we're going to be using that same waltz feeling pattern. And then after that, we're going to jump back into the intro in terms of strumming. That's really it. Gotta love the Beatles sometimes they do things that are so simple. So that's what we've got for this song. We've got our intro, we've got our verse, and then it just kind of keeps repeating those patterns over and over again. So if you're interested in learning that sitar version that you hear over the guitar, we're going to talk about that next. All right. I hope you guys are excited because we're going to be playing my favorite Beatles part, George Harrison's sitar, which is. Goes over the intro. So the sitar, we're going to be playing this. This version still is with capo, too. This way, if you want to jump between strumming and playing the sitar, you can. And we're going to start on the fifth fret of the bottom string. So, fifth fret relative to the capo. I would start with the first finger on the fifth fret, the bottom string and. Sorry, I lied. We're going to start with the third finger on the bottom. And there's a reason. And you'll see in a second. So we're going to play the fifth string. We're going to play it again and we're going to slide up to the seventh fret. So it's five, five, slide to seven. And then the first finger is in place to come back to that fifth fret. So so far we've got.
All right, that's what we've got so far.
Okay. And then after that we're going to come back down and we're going to play the third fret, the second fret and then open string.
Three, two, two, three. Okay, so that whole thing again. So we just did this part.
And then 3, 2, open, 3, 2, 3. And that's where we've ended so far. Right, so it's.
And then we're going to add the last four notes, which is the first finger on the second string.
Third finger on the bottom string, open B string and then second fret on the G string. So all together we've got.
Alright, here I am on a close up just so you can see my fingers. So we've got 5, 5 to 7.
And then 3, 2.
Open, 3, 2, 3, 1, 3 open 2. I'll do it one more time. So we've got.
Like I said, you can either play the picked out intro or you can strum the intro. Whichever is more fun for you. If you're a beginner, you might like the picking better than the strumming. Hope you guys enjoyed my Norwegian wood lesson. YouTube's gonna pop up a couple more videos over here, go check them out. Hope to see you guys in another lesson video.
