Step-By-Step Ob La Di Ob La Da Guitar Lesson for BEGINNERS!

O bloody oh Blooda Life goes on.

Today we're going to be doing a super fun song by the Beatles and I'm going to be showing you how to do it at the beginner level using three easy chords in a simple strumming pattern. So let's get into it.

Alright, guitar enthusiasts, so the three chords we're going to be focusing on in this song are going to be the A major chord, the D major chord and the E major chord. Now, in full transparency, because everyone yells at me when I do these beginner songs, there are a few more chords for you purists out there. There is an E7 and an A7 chord. And if you're a beginner, I'm going to show you really simple ways to get in and out of those if you want to add those in there. And unfortunately. Oh, there is an F sharp minor bar chord, but I'm going to show you how we can get past it using a beginner chord for this song. So for those of you who don't know me, my name is Lauren Bateman and on my YouTube channel I help make the guitar make sense so that you can have fun playing the songs that you know and love, like this one right here. So let's get into our strumming pattern. We're going to use a simple eighth note strumming pattern. So, eighth note, you count that as 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. Okay, so if we played that strumming wise, it would be down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up. Okay, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up. So I'm going to play my A chord and as another reminder, we have a capo here at the first fret of the guitar. So my A chord is actually on the third fret now, but we're still playing an A chord that's called relative to the capo. All right, and what we're going to do here is it's going to be down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up. This is the simplest way to do it.

Okay, so it's 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and.

Okay, now let's pick up the speed a little faster. One and two and three and four and.

One more time.

Okay, so that's the tricky part of this song is that it's very quick. Okay. When we get into it, Desmond has.

A barrow in the marketplace. Molly is a singer in the band.

So you're gonna want to work up that strumming until you can get to a Fast enough speed to play along with the record. Now, if you're someone who's been playing a little bit, maybe you're a little bit more late beginner. I want to give you a little spice that you can throw in. And if it's too much for you, don't worry about it. But I just want to give you a little extra tidbit if you're interested. So since this is a piano song and we're trying to play it on guitar, you could play the bass note of the chord A and go bass as the down strum and then up on the treble notes so it'll sound like this.

So for, for each chord, you're maybe hitting like the top, top two or three strings, the bass notes. And then on the up strum, you're hitting the bottom two or three treble high strings. And it gives it more of that piano feel because the piano has low, high, low, high, low, high, low, high, low, high, low, high, low, high, low, high.

So there's a little spice for you guys who want to take it maybe to the late beginner level. So let's talk about the playthrough for our verse. So we're gonna have an A chord, an E chord. Okay, so another E chord, an A chord, an A chord, a D chord, and then an A chord and an E chord. But they're splitting a measure. That means they're each going to be two beats. Each is going to be a down, up, down, up, and then an A chord. Okay, so I'm going to play through the verse and then I'm going to show you where you could add in those different chords if you're interested. So let's do it. So we got 1, 2, 3, 4.

Desmond has a barrow in the marketplace. Molly is a singer in the band.

Desmond says to Molly, I like your face. And Molly says it as she takes him by the hand.

So not too bad. See, if you can just stick with those three simple chords, you can actually play a song. And it's super fun. Now I want to make a note that on this we played two E's in a row and two A's in a row. Now the real song is it actually changes to an E7. Okay, now if you guys are like, oh my gosh, that's a new chord. Don't worry about it. So if you know an E major chord, all you have to do is lift up the third finger and you've got an E7 chord. Isn't that cool? And then if you know An A major chord. And you play it the way I do with your first, second and third fingers. You lift up the second finger. I tell people, this is when you can flip me off and tell me how you really feel about me. Alright. Or if you use the second finger, third and fourth fingers, you can lift up the third finger. Okay. And if you bar, unfortunately you'd have to change the whole chord. But if you do play your A7 this way, if you lift up that second finger, it gives a little bit more movement. Listen to how the song changes by just adding in those two little chord changes. Let's take it from the beginning of the verse again. So we got one, two, ready.

And Desmond has a barrow in the marketplace.

E7.

Molly is a singer in the band.

Here comes the A7.

Desmond says to Molly, girl, I like your face. And Molly says this, and she takes him by the hand.

So you can see it just adds a little bit of a different movement to the chords in the verse. But again, if you don't know those seven chords, keep it simple. Stick with the regular A and the regular E and you're gonna be fine. Let's jump into the chorus section of the song now. So there's a special timing in this chorus. Chorus section, particularly on that part where they go, brah. Okay, Usually what you would do over that is you would play an F sharp minor 7 chord, which actually looks like this, or an F sharp minor. Either would work. And you're like, lauren, that's a bar chord. I can't do those yet because I'm a beginner. Right, so what you guys have, there's two options. You could play an A chord on the bottom three strings. But I think for this song it's a little too aggressive. So I'm just going to recommend going right back to the A chord on this. All right, so let me sing it for you so you guys can hear it and then we're going to talk about the timing. So it's got obl, D, O, blah, dah.

Life goes on.

Okay. See, sound still sounds fine with that A chord in there, who cares? It's great. Don't worry about the F sharp if you can't F sharp minor if you can't play it. Now, the timing you heard on that bra, the chord changes on bra. And it's great because it's on an up strum so you get those bright tones of the higher strings. Now the timing is tricky. We're changing on the up strum the and of two. So if you Take that E chord. It's going to be 1 and 2 and. Okay, do that again. 1 and 2 and now let's go. Speed it up just a little bit. One and two and.

One and two and last time.

One and two.

Good. So if we put it in front of the A, the A is a full measure.

1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and.

So we got O blah D, O.

Blah da Life goes on.

La la la la goes on Let it repeat.

Life goes on.

Now you can either hold that chord and let it ring for the bra, for the timing, or you can go back to the eighth note pattern. Let me play through the chorus so that you guys can hear what that sounds like. And then we're going to move on to the bridge section. So here's the chorus. One, two, ready and.

O bloody O Blah da Life goes on.

Life goes on.

Now the bridge section of the song only changes up the chords. The strumming is the same. And don't worry, I'll do a little playthrough for you guys so that we can get a verse, a chorus and a bridge in here all the way through for you. So the bridge, we're starting on a D chord and the strumming staying the same. Okay, we've got two Ds followed by two as, followed by two Ds and then an AE. So it'll be in a couple of years.

They have built a home sweet home.

With a couple of kids running within the eye of Desmond and Molly Jones.

All right, so that's kind of the timing for our bridge section there. So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to play through, I'm going to do a verse and a chorus. I'll do the second verse, the second chorus and a bridge so that you guys can hear what it sounds like all the way through. One, two. Ready and happy ever after in the.

Marketplace Desmond lets the children lend a.

Hand.

Molly stays at home and does a pretty face and in the evening she still sings it with the band chorus. Oh blah D oh blah da Life goes on.

La la la la Life goes on oh blah D Obla da Life goes on Ba la la la la Life goes on Here comes the bridge. In a couple of years they have built a home sweet home.

1 and.

2 and 3 and back to D.

With a couple of kids running in the yard A dozen and Mille Jones.

Hope you guys enjoyed this three chord song. If you're looking for an even easier Beatles song with only two chords. Then check out my Eleanor Rigby lesson right over there.