Lauren Bateman teaches the four chords and three strumming patterns for Eric Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight." The main progression is G-D-C-D, with a six-chord middle section. She shows an optional bass walk-down and plays through the verse.
Questions this video answers
June 18, 2017
G, D, C, and E minor
G – D – C – D
C – D – G – E minor – C – D – D
Count "one, two-and, and four" with no down strum on beat three (i.e., down, down… [syncopated accents])
Chapters
Hello, guitar enthusiasts, and welcome to my instructional video on Eric Clapton's wonderful Tonight. Beautiful song, Wonderful acoustic guitar song. And what we're going to do is we're going to keep it simple. I love this song because it's my four favorite chords, which are G, D, C and E minor. I also like this song because it's very repetitive. For most of the song it's the same four chord progression and every once in a while he changes it just a little bit, but for the most part it seems pretty much the same thing. So we're going to start with this intro. Or actually, why don't I start with the strumming? Because we're going to go over three different ways you can strum this. There's the simple way, which is just four down strums. So if you do a G chord, 1, 2, 3, 4.
1, 2, 3, 4.
You can just do four simple down strums. The other way, if you want to spice it up a little bit, is to do 1, 2, 3 and 4.
That's another way to do it. The way I did it in the intro and the way I'm going to do it for this discussion here is I'm going to do a syncopated rhythm. Now, syncopated rhythms can be tricky for beginners, so if you're just getting started with the guitar, I would not recommend trying to do this strumming pattern. So this strumming pattern is one, two and, and four. And there's no down strum on the three. So it's going to be down, down.
That's what I'm going to use for this demonstration here. So the intro, the first part of the song is a simple chord progression. It is G, D, C, D. That's how the song starts. So we're going to start with that intro. So we've got G, D, C, D. It's going to sound like this.
Down, down, up, up, down, up, D. Down, up, up, down, up, C.
And.
D. And then we're going to play that two more times.
G, D.
C.
D. One more time with me.
Down, down, up, up, down, up, down.
Down.
Up, down, up, down, down, up, up, down, up.
So that's how our song starts. And then we're going to switch chord progressions after that. We're going to go to a C. It's going to be C, D, G, E minor. So it's going to be C.
D.
G.
E minor.
And then back to C.
And then G. We're back to the beginning to D.
To C.
To D.
So the first progression, which is the majority of the song, is G, D, C, D. And then we have this six chord progression that comes in in the middle, which is C, D, G, E minor, C, D, D. Now if you're feeling like you want to get fancy and you know how to do a walk down, we can put a bass walk down in this second progression. So when we go to C, C.
To D, we've got G.
So I.
Would do A down, down, up.
And then I'm going to move my first finger up to. To the top string.
Down, down, up.
And then E minor.
Down, down, up, up, down, up.
So it sounds like this G, F sharp, E minor. So we're pretty much on the bass line. It's going like this G, F sharp, E. This pops up in tons of signs. It's really good to learn this. It pops up everywhere. But the strumming pattern I'm doing is G.
Down, down, up. And then I'm just going from G. I'm putting my first finger on the second fret of the top string. That's F sharp. I'm doing down, down, up. And then I'm strumming E minor. So the whole thing sounds like this C.
And then she asked me, Here we go. Down, down, up, down, down, up, down, down, up, up, down, up.
And that's it. That's the entire song. It just keeps repeating from start to finish that same chord progression. And then you switch back. So I'm going to take it from the beginning and I'm going to try and just sing this kind of this first verse for you with an intro so that you can hear how it sounds. So here it goes, two, three, four.
Late in the evening.
She'S wondering what clothes to wear.
She puts on her makeup.
And brushes her long blonde hair.
Well and then she asks me.
Do.
I look all right?
And I say, yes, you look wonderful tonight.
And there you have it.
That's wonderful tonight now if you can't do that walk down, don't worry about it. Just strum a full G chord. It'll work. It'll sound perfectly fine with the song. So this is Eric Clapton's Wonderful Tonight. Practice hard, work on those chord changes and you'll have it up to speed in no time. I'll see you guys in the next video.
