Yesterday Guitar Lesson FINGERSTYLE Version

I had a lot of requests for a guitar lesson on Yesterday by the Beatles. So we're gonna get into it step by step. Super, super fun finger picking song. The chords we're gonna be using are in the key of G. And I tell you, the key on this one because Paul, when he plays this on the record, he's actually tuned his guitar down by two notes, what we call a whole step. So even though he's playing a G chord, he's technically playing the song in F. All right. But Paul doesn't want to play a bunch of bar chords and neither do we. So for now, I have not tuned down my guitar. I'm just going to be playing all the open chords regularly. But if you wanted to play with the record, just know you're going to have to tune your guitar a whole step down. So how would you do that? The top string instead of being E is going to be D. The next string instead of being A is going to be giving. The next string down instead of D will be C. The next string down instead of G is going to be F. The next string down instead of B is going to be A. And once again, this high E string will be tuned down to a D note. Now because we are using chords in the key of G, we have mostly open chords. There's only going to be one bar chord in this song, so we're going to have a G chord. The one bar chord is going to be F sharp minor. Okay? That's the only one we have to contend with. B7. We have E minor, we're gonna have a C chord, we're gonna have a D7 chord. We're gonna have an A7 chord. And we are also going to have an E minor 7 chord that comes in. And I can't remember if I said D7, but it's in there. And the cool thing about this song is there's gonna be lots of cool little walk downs we're gonna be doing. So there's gonna be some chord voicings that are gonna be changing and we're gonna talk about that when we get to those walkdowns. But first let's talk about the two finger to be using for this song.

So for those of you who don't know me, my name is Lauren Bateman and I help make the guitar make sense. I specialize in helping guitar students over the age of 50 have fun playing the songs they know and love. Just like this one by the Beatles. And we're going to keep this one as simple as Possible. It is a finger picking song, so it's not really a song for absolute beginners. And if you guys want to learn more about finger picking, you can check out my finger picking series up there. So let's start off with the timing. Okay? There's going to be two patterns, and the first one's just going to get us in with the timing. So let's talk about what we're going to be doing here. We're going to be doing a bass pluck or a bass treble. And the bass is going to be played by the thumb. And that treble section is going to be played by the other three fingers here. No pinky. Okay. And we're going to be playing the bass note. Let's take this G chord, okay? I'm going to be playing the bass note, which is the lowest note of the chord. So on this G chord, it's going to be the sixth string, okay? And I'm going to be going 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. And I'm going to be going bass pluck, bass pluck, bass pluck, bass pluck.

Okay? And I'm just kind of lifting up with those bottom three fingers slightly on the string. So just so you know, the first finger is on the third string. The second finger is on the second string, and the third finger is on that high E string. And those fingers are never going to move. The thumb is going to be the one moving around, doing all the work for this song. Here is the rhythm. It's going to be bass pluck, bass pluck, bass pluck, bass pluck. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And try it on your own.

Okay? So you can hear that. And you could use this pattern for the entire song. But before I show you that, let's go over the other chords. If you were to play like a B7 chord or C chord, a five string chord, the bass note is going to be the fifth string.

Okay? And if you play something like the D7 chord.

Okay, the fourth string is going to be the bass note. So that's the important thing to remember. These three fingers are not moving. They're staying on those bottom three strings. All the movement is the thumb. So four string chord. Playing the D note as the bass five string chord is going to be the A string as the bass. And then six string chord, E minor G. We're going to be playing that top six string as the bass. Okay? So you could use this pattern for the entire song and get away with it. I'm going to show you what? I think Paul's doing a little bit more in a second. But just so you guys can hear what that sounds like. It would sound like this yesterday.

All.

My trouble seems so far away.

So you can hear. This would totally work. And if you were playing in front of friends and family, would they say anything and be like, that's not how Paul plays it on the record? They wouldn't. If you played it like that, people would just be very happy that you were playing Yesterday by the Beatles. But if you want to sound a little bit more like the record, I'm going to show the other picking pattern that we're going to use for this song. But don't forget this one because it's gonna come in and out, especially when we do those walk downs. Now, if you listen to the record, there is some variation on the walk down sections. But for the most part, this is the pattern we're hearing on this song. Instead of going bass pluck, bass pluck, bass pluck like we were doing before, it's going to be bass pluck, pluck, pluck, bass pluck, pluck, pluck, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. M.

Okay, so that's what you're going to hear on that intro. It's just going to be.

Okay. The sign is quick. That's another difficulty of this song. But it's super fun to play and it makes you sound like a guitar master once you get it down. So let's talk about these walk downs. All right, There's a number of walkdowns that come into play in the song. And don't worry, I will do a little bit of a playthrough for you guys so that you can see the different parts. Let's start off with the verse. The intro is just a couple G's.

Okay, that's the intro, nothing crazy. On this next G in the verse, we have our first walk down. We're going from a G chord to an F sharp minor chord. So what we're going to do is on the first half of the G, we're going to go.

We're going to use that pattern I just showed you. And on the second half, we're going to use the first pattern I showed you. So it's going to be.

Did you hear that?

So I'm using that second pattern to help me get through the walk downs. Now again, is this exactly what Paul does on the record? Not exactly, but it's a formula that's going to help you guys get through these walk downs. Very, very simply. So let's take that G chord. So it's going to be bass pluck, pluck, pluck, and then bass pluck. And to do this walk down, we're going to take our first finger and just move it up to the second fret on the top string. Okay? So you'll notice that my third finger, or if you're using your pinky here, whichever note, whichever finger you use to play your G chord, I'm leaving that in place because I still want this note to come through. Okay, so it's going to be 1 or it's going to be 3, 3 and 4. And that's the timing. So it's 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And which puts us in place for our F sharp minor.

Okay, and from the F sharp minor, we're going to B7.

Okay, so that's our first two measures. So we have a G chord, nice and slow.

Okay, so there we go. Those are our first two measures. This next measure with the E minor chord also has a walk down. Okay, so this E minor chord, we're going to be doing the same exact thing. Okay, so we got bass pluck, pluck, pluck. Now, the bass note on this next part is going to be a D note. And you'll notice that our finger is in place on this D note. So what I'm going to do is when I get to that fourth beat, I'm just going to lift my fingers off the guitar so I have that D note exposed. Here, take a listen.

Hear that? Did you hear that? Let's do it again.

So on the fourth beat, I lifted up my finger so that I could get that D bass note to ring through. Okay, so this is what we have so far. So we've got G.

F sharp minor, B7, E minor.

Then C, D7.

And then I have another G. Walk down the same as we did before.

Okay, and this time we're going into E minor circumstances, seven.

To A seven.

And then we have a little bit of a timing on the next walk down or the next measure. Let's just do all the way through on that first. And then I'll talk about this very last measure where the timing changes up a lot differently from the rest of the song. So let's take it from the first part. Okay. Starting from the G. Ready?

One, two.

Nice and slow. And.

Okay, so what am I doing on that last measure? We're going to. If we're timing the chord change with the lyrics, it's yesterday. If I were going to strum the Chords, it would be C, G, G and 4. And so we're finger picking. So we're going to time it. We're just going to pluck the chord, the entire chord. So we're going to use our thumb and our treble fingers yesterday. So we're plucking the entire chord at.

The same time yesterday.

And then I got and for am. Okay, or you could do the other one if you want to get the.

Bass note in yesterday.

I think I kind of like the bass pluck on that. Going treble, bass, treble.

So again, yesterday.

That'S what I like and that's probably what I would do naturally if I were playing. So that's the verse. Okay, so we've gotten through the verse sections. Fantastic. But there's another part of the song called the chorus and there's some really unique walkdowns in this section. So let's go through that next. So as you notice on this song, a lot of these chords are splitting measures. So these chord changes are coming very, very fast. So this chord starts with the F sharp minor to B7. Okay, we've already done that chord change, same pattern.

And then this next part is probably one of my favorite walk downs. Now Paul is doing some other kind of like intricate stuff. We're just going to focus on the bass walk down. So the bass walk down, we're playing over an E minor chord and we're going to go E, D, C, B, A. That is our entire walk down. And we're going to do most of it over an E minor chord. So when we strum, when we have our E minor chord, we're going to do E minor. Then we're going to lift up our fingers just like we did before to get that D bass. Then we've got to get the C note, the B note, and then the A is actually going to be over a D7 chord. So it's going to be a D7A chord. So there's a lot of slash chords here. So how am I going to do this? I would stick to that first pattern. Okay. Paul does something a little bit different, but I'm going to have you stick to that first pattern. So it's going to sound like this.

Okay. Did you hear that? How did you hear that? Bass line was walking down all the notes one more time. So we have the E note, the D note, the C note, the B note, and then the A Note over a D7 chord. Alright, so notice I only played the E minor really for the first chord because then I'M lifting it on the second chord. Third finger goes to the the C note which is the third fret on the fifth string. Then second fret is the B string. Open string is our A. And I'm on the D7 chord. Alright, so how is that whole line going to sound? We're going to start F sharp minor.

To B7.

Then we got E minor.

Now we got our D7 with the A in the bass.

And then we go to a regular D7. So now we're on the D note as the bass.

Our next measure, we have that G walk down again.

And this takes us back to the beginning of the chorus.

B7. Now E to D to C to b to a.

D7.

The chorus ends with a nice little strum on that G chord. So let's put this all together now in a little play along. And we're gonna go through it step by step. I'm gonna play a little bit faster, a little bit more up to speed. If you need to slow me down, don't be afraid to use that settings cog and slow me right down to practice with me. One, two, Here we go.

Yesterday.

All my troubles seem so far away.

Now it looks as though I'm here this day oh, I believe in yesterday Suddenly.

I'm not half the man I used to be.

There's a shadow hanging over me Abby day came suddenly. Why'd she have to go? I don't know. She wouldn't say.

I say something's wrong Now I long for yesterday.

Now if you go back and listen, you'll probably hear a couple mistakes where I didn't quite hit the right stream. But that's a great thing about finger picking. As long as you keep going and you don't make a big fuss over making a mistake, it can still sound really good. Now if you really want to get into finger picking and learning some more great songs, then I highly recommend you go check out my Finger Picking playlist right over there. That has a list of amazing songs to get your fingers moving.