How to Play Hallelujah on Harmonica (A Step-By-Step Guide)

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Hallelujah C Jam Track from My Karaoke World:    • Hallelujah-Acoustic Karaoke in C major-Jef...  

This is a Harmonica cover of Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen, based off of Jeff Buckley’s arrangement. For this harmonica lesson we’re gonna play it in the common key of C, on our trusty C harmonicas, in 1st position. Here’s the harmonica tabs in C for Hallelujah:

Well I heard there was a secret chord
5 5 6 6 6 6 -6 -6 -6
That David played and it pleased the Lord
5 6 6 6 5 6 -6 -6 -6
But you don’t really care for music do ya
6 -6 -6 -6 -6 -6 6 6 -5 6 6
Well it goes like this, the fourth the fifth
5 5 6 6 6 6 -6 -6 -7
The minor fall and the major lift
6 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 -8
The baffled king composing hallelujah
7 -8 -8 -8 7 8 8 8 -8 -8 7

Hallelujah
5 6 -6 -6
Hallelujah
-6 6 5 5
Hallelujah
5 6 -6 -6
Hallelu-u-u-u-jah
-6 6 5 -5 5 -4 4
You can hear me playing it like this here.

Interestingly, when the Canadian singer Leonard Cohen first released Hallelujah in 1984, it didn’t achieve commercial success. Rather it was John Cale’s 1991 cover that began to bring popularity to the song.

Cale’s cover inspired the young singer Jeff Buckley to record it in 1994, which catapulted it into the limelight. John Cale’s cover also later appeared in the movie Shrek in 2001.
Since then, many artists have covered immensely popular versions of the song.

Fun fact: Cohen spent 5 years writing this song and is reported to have had between 80 and 180 verses for it. He recounts the end of the process, sitting in a hotel room with notebook paper everywhere, banging his head on the floor.