Wish You Were Here Guitar Lesson - Cool Intro + Strumming!

Hey, guitar enthusiasts, welcome to My Wish youh Were Here Guitar Lesson where we are going to go over this amazing song. I'm going to show you a simplified way to play the intro. I'm also going to show you how to simply play through the song with a couple different strumming patterns. But first, let's start off with the chords we're going to be using throughout. So the majority of the song is going to use a C major chord. We're going to have a D major chord, a D chord, and an A minor minor chord. That is going to be the majority of the verse. But in our intro and interlude sections, we do have the addition of a couple extra chords. We have an E minor 7 chord as well as an A7 sus 4 chord. And I'm going to show you how to play those to make the transitions a little bit easier.

So let's start off with our intro where we're going to be playing a lot of individual notes. Okay. And a lot of this is going to focus around E minor 7. So we're going to play I like playing the bright stuck like glue chords, and you're going to see why. So I have my pinky on the bottom string, third fret. I have my third finger on the third fret of the second string. And then I'm just making my E minor, which gives us a really bright sounding E minor 7. Okay. It makes it very easy to switch over to G. Okay. And then later, when we go to our A7SUS4, it's a very, very easy transition. We're going to be going From E minor 7 to G and then E minor 7 to A7SUS 4. Now, the reason that this might be helpful, if you're not used to going between playing lead guitar and jumping back into chords, having that little anchor point can help you just speed up the process a bit. So. So just to show you briefly what we're going to be doing. So we have little licks just like this.

Okay.

So nice and easy.

Okay. So we're going to be playing little lead lines and then we're going to be strumming in between. All right, before we talk on the the lead lines, let's talk about the strumming we're going to be doing for each chord. We're going to keep it very, very simple on this intro. All I want you to do, if I take that E minor 7 chord. All right, we're going to go down, down, down, up. Now, if I count that, it's going to be 1, 3, 4. And so it's going to be down, down, down, up, two, three. Ready? Down, down, down, up again. Here we go.

Two. Ready and.

Okay, so that's what we're going to do when we get to each chord. Because what we're going to do is we're going to be playing a little bit of a lead line and then we're going to strum a chord back to a little bit of a lead line. Strum a chord, all right. And this fills it in very nicely. So let's talk about the first lick which we are going to repeat throughout. Very, very commonly found in music. We have. Our second finger is going to start by playing almost like we're a G chord here. We're going to be playing the third fret on the top string. Then we're going to be playing an open A string, second fret on the A string and then an open D string. Now if you really listen to the record, you're going to hear what we call a hammer on. It's going to sound like this.

So it's one pick but two notes.

Okay. And if you're not used to playing hammer ons, it can be a little bit tricky. I will tell you it's more about the speed than the strength. So you're playing the open note and then you're hammering like I think hammering a nail. You're hammering onto the second fret. It has a very distinct noise now, or very distinct sound is if you're not good with hammer ons, just pick the note. Nothing wrong with picking two notes. But I'll tell you, little tip, if you snap your finger and you go really slow, you won't get any sound. But if I go fast, I will get the snapping of my finger. Hammer ons are very similar. If you're not going fast enough, you'll. You'll kill the note. Okay, I'm going to play the hammer on, but feel free to play the notes individually. Alright, so again the first note, third fret on the top string open, then second fret on the A string, then open D string.

And then once we play that open D string, it's right into an E minor chord. Okay.

So you'll notice that my lick falls right in between where the chord is.

Okay. So that's our first lick.

Okay. And then we're going to do our down, down, down, up. Now we're going to move our way into a G chord. We're going to leave the E minor chord down and you'll see why? In a second. So we're going to play an open G. Then we're going to play the second fret on the D string.

Okay. Because my finger's already there. And then we're going to lift up the finger on the D string.

Okay?

Okay. And that open string.

Is our G. Okay. So we're kind of combining the lead with strumming. So once again, we've got the open G, the second fret on the D string. And then the open D is going to be when we strum our G chord. So I put those two together, it's going to sound like this.

Okay? And then it just repeats that again. We start off with the E minor lick.

Back into G.

Now we're going to change to our other chord that I mentioned, the A7SUS4. And we're going to be playing a little different of a lick going into that. So we're going to start off the same because we're going into E minor. So we're going to start off with this lick.

Okay. Keep that E minor down. We're going to start on the D string. Okay. And it's going to be D string. Lift up your finger. Open, and then a string, and then lift up the finger. Okay. So when we lift up the finger, that's going to be playing a 7 sus 4. So it's going to sound like this.

Okay? So first one, e minor.

Then back to E minor.

And then Back to that A7.

And then we're going to end on G.

And I'm just ending with a nice down, down, down, up, down, down, down, up. So if I put the whole thing together. All right, And. And there is a solo part that comes after that. We're not going to be going over the solo part in this lesson, but you would play through this. You play through that entire section twice, and then you would end on the G chord, which will transition you into the song. So let's try it from the top, just a very, very slow speed. So, ready? One, two. Here we go.

Sam.

And there you go.

That is our intro section, which we will use throughout the song. We will use it on our little interlude on the little break, and then we will use it on our outro as well. But now let's move into the first verse. I'm going to show you one strumming pattern for this verse, and then I'm going to show you a different pattern for the second verse. And the reason why is because this song kind of builds over time, so I want to keep the strumping, strumming, strumping. The strumming very simple in the beginning so that we can build it as we go. So after we play that G chord on the intro, we're going to hop into a C major chord, then a D chord, A minor and G. All right. And I'm just going to keep the summing, strumming pattern really, really simple here because it's very. This is not like a hard core heavy metal, like fast paced rock song. It's nice, even kilter. So the strumming I just want you to do is going to be 1, 2, 3, 4 and up. So it's going to be 1, 2, 3,. 4 and up, down, down, down, down, down, up, down, down, down, down, down. All right, and that's what we're going to use on this verse. But we are going to change it up for the next verse. But I want to do a quick playthrough here just with that strumming pattern. We're going to be doing it once per chord. So it's 1, 2, 3, 4 and. All right, so let's take it from the top of that burst starting on the C chord. And if you need notes, the notes are over. On my website, laurenbateman.com you can go follow over there as well. So we got one, two, here we go. And so.

So you think you can tell.

Heaven.

From hell.

The skies from pain?

Can you tell a green field.

From cold scale rail?

A smile from a veil?

Do you think you could tell?

Now on this G chord is where I would start picking up the strumming because I think, if I remember correctly in the record, I think this is where the drums kick in on the song. So we get into the next verse which is. Did they think you could trade your heroes for ghosts? So here we're just gonna double up what we're doing on the end of the pattern. So Instead of going 1, 2, 3, 4 and up, we're gonna go 1, 2 and a 3, 4 and up. So it's gonna be down, down, down.

Up, down, down, down, up, 1, 2.

And a 3, 4 and a down, down, down, up, down. Ready?

One more time.

So just going to add a little bit more of dynamics into that second verse. The chords are not changing. We have the same chord Progression. C, D, A minor, G. Okay. D, C, A minor, G. Okay. And then we're going to jump back in into our little instrumental. Okay. So let's take it from verse one here just to show you how that change is going to make it sound and then we're going to do a full playthrough. So what we're going to do is we're just going to take this from the second verse, let's use this strumming pattern, and then we'll do a full playthrough where we're going to put everything together. So let's start at that second verse on our C chord. And we've got 1, 2, 3, ready?

Did they get you to train.

Your heroes for ghosts?

Hot ashes for trees.

Hot air for a cool breeze Cold comfort for change.

And did you exchange.

A walk apart part in the war.

Lead roll in a cage?

Okay, and that's where we would jump right back in to our intro. So let's go in for a little playthrough on this. And remember, if I'm still going too fast for you, you can always use the settings cog to just slow me down a little bit and make it plain playable to the speed where you feel comfortable. Ready? One, two, three.

So.

So you think you can tell.

Heaven through hell.

Blue skies from pain.

Can you follow green fields from a cold steel.

Smile from a veil.

Do you think you could tell?

Did they get you to train.

You.

Hear us with ghosts.

Hot ashes for.

Trees.

Hot air for a cool breeze Cold comfort for change.

And did you exchange A walking pot in the wool.

A lead rolled in a cage.

Sam.

Well how.

How I wish you were.

Here.

Oh we're just two lost souls Swimmin in a fishbowl Year after year Running over the same old ground.

What have we found the same old de.

I wish you were here.

So I want to point out, because I've been playing the guitar for a very long time and I still make mistakes. And I made a couple mistakes when I was doing that playthrough, particularly on the A7 sus 4. I played one wrong note and you'll notice I didn't stop the entire song because I made a mistake. If you make mistakes when you're playing a song, just keep playing through it. You'll learn more by playing through your mistakes than stopping the entire song and taking it from the beginning. Play through the mistakes. And if you're someone that has trouble, you know, memorizing where the strings are, you'll see I wasn't really watching the strings while I was picking. I have a really great exercise over here for learning the strings and the distances between the strings on your guitar. So if you had difficulty with that in this lesson, definitely go check that lesson right over there.