While My Guitar Gently Weeps Easier Acoustic Lesson

Hey, guitar enthusiast Lauren Bateman here in this guitar lesson, we're going to do an easy acoustic version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by the Beatles. I do have a version here on YouTube that's a little bit more intermediate. This one we're going to keep simpler. Going to show you ways to get around playing the bar chords. There's no way to play this song without avoiding that, even if you change a key or use a capo, because there it. There's just a weird key change that happens. So I'm going to show you how you can make this easier for you to play even if you can't play bar chords. So let's start off with the chords we're going to be using. So we're going to have a G chord, a minor chord, a D chord. We're also going to have an A major chord. Instead of an F chord. We're going to play F major 7. But when I listen to the song, I actually think that's what they're doing because that's a very open sound. So I. So we're gonna play F major 7. You can either use the four finger version or the three finger version. The four finger is gonna have a little bit more beef to it. So if you can do that, that's great. Very easy. From a C chord, all you do is add the pinky and move the second finger down. Okay, so that's how you build that F major 7. And then our bar chords on the chorus are going to be C sharp minor, F sharp minor, and B minor. So what can we do? Because that's a lot of barre chords in a chorus. So the easy way is to just play off the bottom three strings. So we're just going to play the bottom half of the chord. Now I'll let you know. This is going to make the chord sound a little bit brighter because it's just the treble strings. There's no bass to warm up the chord. But until you can play the full bar chords, it's a great way to play along to the song. So to build the C sharp minor, you're going to put your first finger on the fourth fret of the bottom string and you're going to go fourth fret up a string, fifth fret up a string, sixth fret. Okay, so this is going to be your C minor chord. Now, the great thing about this, you're going to be going from C minor to B minor. All you have to do is slide this back two frets. And this is B minor. Okay, so 4, 5, 6 is C minor. 2, 3, 4 is B minor. And then for F sharp minor, you're just going to play an A chord on the bottom three strings. Or if you want to use the first finger and bar, all three, you just an A chord on the bottom three strings. So we have C minor, B minor and F sharp minor. Okay, so those are your easy fixes if you cannot play the full bar chords. So now let's talk about the strumming. So we're going to keep pretty much the same strumming pattern throughout the song, except for the very end. We're going to change things up a little bit just to make it a little bit more fun for you. And you can mix that other strumming pattern in throughout this if you want to. So all we're going to do is keep a very, very simple strumming pattern. Like I said, we're going to keep this easy. And it's going to be 1, 2, 3 and 4 and okay. Down, down, down, up, down, up, down, down, down, up, down, up, down, down, down, up, down, up. That's the only strumming pattern we're going to use. So if we look at the verse, my chord progression is double A minor, D, F major, 7 and then A minor, G, D, E. So if I

go, I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping while my guitar gently weeps.

So gets here. It works very, very well for this verse section. And it'll even work very, very well on this chorus section. Okay, so the chorus section, like I said, is where our bar chords come in. So after you play that verse progression, you just play it again. Which brings us into our chorus. And we have. We can use the same strumming pattern. Okay. It can be just staying on 1, 2, 3 and 4m. Okay, so we've got our A chord, 1, 2, 3 and 4M. And this is the C sharp minor. Okay. See how sometimes it doesn't sound the greatest, but least you can play, right? And you're gonna try best you can to just get those bottom three strings, 1, 2, 3 and 4. And then F sharp minor, 1, 2, 3 and four. And back to C sharp minor. And then B minor. Then ends on E. Now another strumming pattern you could use on the chorus to come kind of change up the feel. It's a little bit more of a late beginner pattern. It's a syncopated pattern, which means we're missing one of our down strums. And that is down, down, up, up, down, up, down, down, up, up, down, up. Now, I think that's a trickier strum to do with fixes for those bar chords. But it would sound like this.

I don't know why Nobody told you how to unfold your love and if

you use the full bar chords, it'll sound a little warmer.

And I don't know how someone controlled you they bought and sold you

so you see, eventually, if you can work your way up to those full bar chords, it'll really just fill out the sound more because you have those bass notes. So those are your options. All right, so if you want to keep it super, super simple, I would just do the same strum the entire song. 1, 2, 3, and 4. And. Or if you want to have a little change. And musically the song does change on the chorus. So I think changing up the strumming pattern fits song a little bit better. But again, if you're trying to just keep this as simple as possible, stick to the same strumming pattern for the entire song. But I want to give you options in case you are trying to challenge yourself a bit more. And I'll do that on the playthrough at the end. I'll use a multiple strumming pattern. So speaking of multiple strumming patterns, we've basically gone through most of the song already. It's basically verse, chorus, verse, chorus, and then there's an instrumental, which is basically just another verse. And then we kind of have our final chorus and verse. So on the final verse, so what? This strumming pattern is all eighth notes. It's all downs 1 and 2 and 3 and 4.

And.

But making 1 and 2 a little bit louder and kind of accenting the two, This was kind of like 1 and 2, 3 and 4, and 1 and 2, 3 and 4,. And 1 and 2, 3 and four, and 1 and 2, 3and four. Because you're going to hear in different parts. If you really listen to the recording, there's another guitar that is holding down that rhythm, that one and two. So we can add it to the end on the last verse and outro, just to build the song a little bit. Again, if you're performing this for an audience and it's just you, and you don't have drums, you don't have a bass player, you need to keep things interesting for the listener. So let's take this from the beginning. Okay, we're going to play through. What I'm going to do is I'm going to play with all the added bells and Whistles so I'm going to kind of do the bass walk downs on the instrumental and the intro, you know, So it sounds a little bit more like the song when we play along. But please keep yours very, very simple. Remember this is supposed to be the easier version and if you are interested in learning the more intermediate version afterwards, you can go check that video up over there. But let's go for our playthrough. So here we go, we're going to take from the top. 1, 2, 3, 4.

I look at you all and I see the love bed Sleeping while my guitar gently weeps I look at the floor and I see it creeps Sweeping still my guitar gen wee. I don't know why nobody told you how to unfold your love. And I don't know how how someone controlled you Their body soul do

well

I look at the world and I notice it is turning While my guitar gently we Apes with every mistake we made surely to be learning still my guitar gently we. Sam. I don't know how you were diverted we were perverted to. And I don't know how you were invited no one alerted you

Last verse. Ready?

I look at you all and I see love that's sleeping in you While my guitar genuinely weeps I look at you all and I messed up the words. Still my guitar gently we.

And as you saw through that playthrough, I lost my place and I was thinking about the G, the A minor G chord and I accidentally played a G chord as opposed to the A minor chord. But notice I didn't stop, I kept playing. I did mess up on the lyrics. My whole brain was lost at that point. But if you keep going, whenever you make a mistake, play through it. You learn more by playing through your mistakes than stopping. Especially if you get all the way to the end of the song, don't stop, play through it, keep going and do the best you can. That was While My Guitar Gently Weeps by the Beatles. And if you are a huge Beatle fan like I am, definitely go check out my Beatles playlist right over there with other great Beatles songs to learn on the guitar today.