Stand by Me - Easy Guitar Lesson

For more information from the source site of this video please visit:
https://www.secretguitarteacher.com/

This is a sample lesson from the Secret Guitar Teacher site (see link above). It is aimed at beginners.

Here is the abridged transcript of the lesson.

Ben E King apparently recorded this song just to fill in a bit of spare studio time. Amazing how often such songs become classics!

In the key of A, but much easier to play in G. Capo at fret 2 to play along with record.

So first chord is G, then Em, then C and finally D7.

It works equally well with D instead of D7. I favour D7 because it slightly easier to change to from C.

So make sure you know each of those chords and can shift easily from one to the next in that order. Once familiar with the shapes lets look at the sequence. Notice: Two bars of G; two bars of Em; one of C, one of D7; two of G. Follow along with me. If beginner strum once per bar. (Strumming pattern later). Like this…

The same sequence is used for both verse and chorus. A common problem is the four bars of G – two at end, two at beginning.

Practice that until you’re happy that your left hand is coping with changes ok

Now onto the strumming pattern. This is a song that beginners can find surprisingly tricky so lets build the pattern a layer at a time.

First we need to establish an underlying 8-beat feel like this:

Although 4/4 includes half-beats in the count so that for each bar we hit 8 downstrokes. Beats shown diagonal slashes. Count by the numbers 1 & 2 &…. Symbol on the bottom line = DOWN strokes. So this looks like this:

Once you have practiced that enough to get it smooth try imposing the chord sequence on the same pattern like this. Once down easily - may take a few hours of practice – add an extra accented beat on the & that comes after the 2 like this. Notice that the fourth diagonal slash is in bold meaning that we emphasise this beat.

Because we tend to do this by making the hand travel further to include more strings, for most people learning this song, you will need to miss the next beat to give your hand time to travel back again. That is why the 3rd beat is in brackets. Let’s show you what I mean.

Now, that is a perfectly workable strum pattern for this song, but for perfectionists, I suggest that after practicing this one a while, try to put that beat number three back in place like this:

OK now it’s performance time. Whatever level you have got this going at whether just one strum per bar or the tricky offbeat emphasis pattern that we have just demonstrated you can play along.

Going to play out with this now. I will sing the song to help guide you through it – but I have to say Ben E King is a truly great singer - you’re going to quickly realise why I teach guitar and not vocals! See you again soon!