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This song hardly needs an introduction as it is a Beatles classic.  It can be found on the album of the same name.  If you are ever going to play guitar at a party, its usually taken as a given that you have to play a Beatles song, and everyone can join in singing with this one.

The recorded version is based around the piano, but don’t let that worry you, as its quite easy to strum on the guitar.  Its worth noting that all songs are written around a sequence of chords.  Writing music on a piano lends itself access to using chords quite differently.  You can combine notes from different octaves, use variations very easily, play the bass part at the same time and link it in with the chords and you can also use more than six notes, which makes things a little different from guitar.  At the end of the day, you can still reduce a song to its component chords and then transfer it easily to guitar.  Which is exactly what we will do here.

There are three sequences to learn.  A sequence each for the verse and chorus and extra one that is used as a fill in a few areas.

Verse Sequence

The verse sequence is as follows:

C     2     G      4	Am      2      F       4
C    2      G     4	F        (G)    ( F)   C

In this song, the melody/tune is dependent on little runs that link chords in a few places.  As can be seen in the table above, a G and F have been indicated in brackets.  These will be played as notes only.  To make things easy, rather than using the full bar F major, you’d be better using a partial bar F major chord, then the notes are easily played.  We will play the two notes as follows:

• G note - open G string
• F note - D string fretted at the 3rd fret with the 4th finger.

The chord being played before the run is the partial bar F major.  To get the G note, merely remove the 2nd finger and play the open G string.  For the F note, the 4th finger is already on a G note at the 3rd fret on the D string.  So the work is already done for us !  After playing the two notes, give one strum of C.  Notice that the F & G notes are not exactly over the 2nd & 3rd beats of the 4th bar, but somewhere around the 2nd and 3rd beats (which isn’t so easy to represent in writing).

To keep it simple,  I’ve put the chords at 2 down strums each, apart from the final F and C chords which are one down strum each (as part of the homework, you can play around with the rhythm and spice it up a little).  As always, start out slow and build it up until you get to the right speed.

Chorus Sequence

The verse sequence is as follows:

(C)    (B)
Am    2      G       4	F      2        C         4
C       2      G      4	F      (G)   ( F)     C

The chorus sequence is a little different in that it really consists of 4 and a half bars.  The first two notes are sort of played in a half bar (count of two) of their own.  The two notes should be played as follows:

• C note - 3rd fret, A string - 3rd finger
• B note - 2nd fret, A string - 4th finger

Before playing this run, your fingers will be at a C chord position, and you will find these note positions lead naturally from the C chord position (thats called making life easy for yourself, its a good tool that I use frequently).

Fill Sequence

In this song, there is a short fill sequence that is used in a few places, details as follows:

F      (G)   (F)     C	(B)       (A)     G       F
C

2 bars followed by one strum of C major.

Play the following notes:

• B note - 2nd fret, A string, 2nd finger
• A note - A string open

Putting the song together

Ok, you’ve learned all three sequences, all you have to do now is to stitch them altogether to produce the full song.  The following table gives you all the details you need:

Time	Song Part	Bars	Guitar chord part
0:00	Intro	4	Verse Sequence x 1
0:13	Verse 1	8	Verse Sequence x 2
0:38	Chorus	4	Chorus Sequence x 1
0:52	Verse 2	8	Verse Sequence x 2
1:18	Chorus	8	Chorus Sequence x 2
1:45	Fill	4	Fill Sequence x 2
1:59	Solo	8	Verse Sequence x 2
2:26	Chorus	4	Chorus Sequence x 1
2:41	Verse 3	8	Verse Sequence x 2
3:08	Chorus	12	Chorus Sequence x 3
3:50	Fill	2	Fill Sequence x 1
3:57	End	0	End on last strum of C major in fill sequence

So learn all the component parts separately and then practice slowly at joining them together and eventually you’ll build up to having the whole song under your belt.

Homework

• The rhythm given in the examples is very basic, play around and come up with something different (and more lively).
• Try this song with picking, as it sounds quite nice.
• Try using similar note runs to link chords in different songs.  Simply play around with notes to find ones that sound good.  Always trust your ear - if it sounds good, it is good.

For reference purposes, the song is in the key of  C Major.

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