("Hallelujah")
- Hey, it's Nate Savage here
and welcome to this long, long, long overdue video
on probably the number one most requested song
I get in my email inbox
and it's Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen.
It was written in 1984
and it's probably one of those songs that's made popular
or at least to me made more popular
by done as a cover by Jeff Buckley.
And I remember the first time
that I heard his version of this tune.
I remember exactly where I was.
I was in the back of a van in Hawaii on tour
and my friend put it on.
And I was like wow, what song is this?
This is really special.
It's really cool.
Jeff Buckley put it out on his 1994 release Grace
just a few years before he died.
Very young, 31 years old.
But I'm really glad that he at least got this out
before that happened.
So let's get into this.
What we're gonna do is learn the chords.
I'm just gonna go through some basic chords
that are used here.
Just a handful of 'em.
I'm gonna teach you a strumming pattern
that you can use throughout the entire song,
a finger picking pattern
that you can use for the entire song as well.
And then we'll go through the chord progression
and see how that finger picking pattern
and strumming pattern are applied to the entire song.
And we're not gonna do the whole thing.
We're just gonna do one verse and one chorus
because this song is really repetitive.
If you can play one verse and one chorus,
you can play the entire tune.
This song is in the key of C major
but I'm gonna be using a capo on this one
because Jeff Buckley played it with G shapes
and I wanted to keep that same sound.
And if you don't want to play it with these shapes,
that's fine.
You can move it to any key that you like using G shapes.
Move your capo around.
But if you're playing a regular G Major chord,
and I'll just tell you
how to get the capo on here real quick.
If you move that up to where it's an A flat,
an A, then a B flat, a B, then a C,
your root notes will be a C
if you're here on the eighth fret.
So you can move your capo up the same number of frets
to the fifth fret here.
And we'll be playing G shapes
but you'll be playing in the key of C major.
Alright, another little piece of information
you need to know before you get into this tune
is it is in 12/8 timing.
If you've never counted 12/8 time before,
it just goes like this.
One, two, three,
four, five six,
seven, eight, nine,
10, 11, 12,
One, two, three,
four, five, six,
seven, eight, nine,
10, 11, 12.
And it's kind of like a doubled version of 6/8.
One, two, three, four, five, six.
So whichever way you want to think about it is fine.
Just keep that in mind.
You have that big pendulum feel.
So one, two, three, four, five, six.
One, two, three, four, five, six throughout the entire song.
Alright, there are only a handful of chords
that you need to be able to play through this song.
Six, to be precise.
And I'm gonna be pretty specific with the voicings
just to kind of retain the sound
of the Jeff Buckley version.
The first one is a G major chord,
but it's the four finger version.
(guitar strumming)
The next one is an E minor 7,
but it's also the four finger version
so you can just leave your third
and fourth fingers planted up there
and switch to your E minor.
(guitar strumming)
Next one is like the C add 9.
Again, you keep your third and fourth fingers planted there
and switch to your C chord.
(guitar strumming)
Leave that low E string out for this one.
Don't touch it or mute it.
(guitar strumming)
Next is a regular D major chord.
(guitar strumming)
And depending on which version or which sound you like,
the next chord, you can do different chords on.
You can play a B7.
(guitar strumming)
Or you can play like a D sharp diminished chord.
(guitar strumming)
And if you don't know either of those.
Either one will work, just depends what sound you want.
(guitar strumming)
But if you don't know this B7.
Middle finger would be the second fret
'cause I'm treating this capo as the second fret.
It's really the seventh fret though of the A string.
First finger would get like the first fret
of the D, third finger, second fret of the G.
Open B string and pinky will grab the high E string
on what will be the second fret.
And you just leave the low E string out there.
(guitar strumming)
So you could play that chord
or you can play this kind of ubiquitous
fully diminished 7th chord.
D sharp diminished 7th.
(guitar strumming)
It's a really kind of symmetrical feeling chord.
If you've never played it before,
just first finger first fret of the D string,
third finger second fret of the G,
second finger first fret of the B,
pinky second fret of the high E string.
So if you need to take some time to get these chords down,
that's the first step to being able to play this song.
And on this one actually, the low E and A strings out.
Just play the top four strings.
(guitar strumming)
Okay, once you have the chords under your fingers,
the first thing that I want to show you
is just a simple strumming pattern
that you can use throughout the entire song.
And you're gonna notice that the chord changes
are kinda grouped in beats of six or beats of three
so keep that in mind.
And really easy strumming pattern.
It's just all downstrokes.
And think about it in chunks of six beats.
One, two, three, four, five, six.
Just straight all down strokes on all the eighth notes.
One, two, three, four, five, six.
And one way that I kind of dress this up every now and then
is to put a six and. (guitar strumming)
So down-up on beat six.
One, two, three, four, five, six, and.
(guitar strumming)
Let me do that a little bit slower, count it,
and then I'll speed it up so you can get a context for it.
So one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven,
eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, and.
So.
(guitar strumming)
That's the first thing once you have the chords down,
just get that strumming pattern down
to where you're comfortable with it.
And again, you can use just all downstrokes.
That will work out totally fine as well.
Okay, the main fingerstyle pattern that I use
as an accompaniment for this tune.
And I use just one generic one
that's kind of manipulated to fit the chords
whether the chords change on like beat seven
or seven, eight, nine, 10, whichever one it is.
But the main coordination
that you need to get together is this.
(guitar strumming)
Again, all it is is thumb on the low E string,
thumb on the A string, (guitar strumming)
index finger on the G string, (guitar strumming)
and then second and third fingers
on the high B and E strings at the same time.
(guitar strumming)
So so far, thumb, thumb, index, middle, and ring.
And then come back down.
Index finger on the G.
And then you need to hit one more note with your thumb
on the low E string.
This is the one that varies
from chord change to chord change, but it's always there.
(guitar strumming)
And then some low nut with your thumb.
And you'll see how this works out.
But just get this basic coordination down.
(guitar strumming)
And for right now, a good way to learn this
is that last thumb.
Just hit it on the A string.
Thumb, thumb, index, top two strings,
back to the index, and then thumb again.
(guitar strumming)
And then just work on looping it like that.
So that's really kind of the prerequisite
to getting into playing through this song
in an accompaniment fingerstyle pattern.
Work on that first
and then you can jump into the chord progression.
And I'll walk you through
how to apply this fingerstyle pattern.
And the strumming part will be kind of secondary
because it's a little bit more plain and straightforward,
but we'll go through that at the same time.
So we start off on a G chord and go to an E minor chord.
And that's really the intro
and the first part of the verse for this song.
So the intro would be something like this.
(guitar strumming)
Okay?
And all you're doing
is applying your finger picking pattern.
So thumb, thumb again, index, top two strings,
back to the index, and then right here,
you have your thumb to end the pattern with
but I'm doing an F sharp (guitar strumming)
to walk down to an E minor (guitar strumming)
where I start the pattern over again.
So once I hit that F sharp,
I just go to the E minor and play the whole pattern again.
(guitar strumming)
But once you do your last thumb on the E minor,
hit an F sharp again on the low E string.
And that kind of loops you back around
into the G major chord.
And you just keep repeating that.
So G.
(guitar strumming)
With that F sharp note being the last note
of each fingerstyle pattern
that connects one chord to the other.
So for the sake of this lesson,
let's just say that you play that twice for the intro
and then you move into the part where he starts to sing
and you play it two more times,
that G to E minor progression for the beginning of the song.
So intro.
(guitar strumming)
Singing.
(guitar strumming)
And then when you get there, it changes a little bit
so you can get to the next chord,
but let me just show you
what I would do with the strumming there.
It's basically the same thing.
Just count, keep track of where you are.
One, two, three, four, five, six.
That's the intro.
Singing.
(guitar strumming)
Okay, once you get through that first singing part
after the G to E minor and G to E minor again.
(guitar strumming)
Instead of going to the F sharp, you hit.
Well, it'd be like just a B
if you're playing this in the open position.
So it'd be like second fret.
And that leads you into the C major chord
where you play your pattern.
(guitar strumming)
And you do the same pattern here,
but your thumb moves to the A string and the D string.
(guitar strumming)
So.
(guitar strumming)
And from there,
that's six beats for that C chord or half a measure.
And then from there,
you just roll up for three beats on that C chord.
(guitar strumming)
And I usually use just thumb, index, and middle.
(guitar strumming)
Seven, eight, nine.
And then you move to a D chord
for 10, 11, 12 beats in this measure
and just roll up on the lowest three notes of a D chord.
(guitar strumming)
And then you go back to the next chord.
So let me play it all the way up to this point for you
so you can get context for it.
So start on the G.
We'll start where the singing starts.
(guitar strumming)
And if you're doing strumming,
let me show you how that would sound with a C chord.
It would just be one, two, three, four, five, six,
and seven, eight, nine.
Switch to the D for 10, 11, 12.
10, 11, 12.
From there, you move to the G.
Do your pattern.
(guitar strumming)
And on this G, I just hit the A string
because I have to move to a D chord
next for seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12.
(guitar strumming)
And sometimes instead of just rolling up
and down that chord,
(guitar strumming)
I'll put in a little trill there
(guitar strumming)
just to make it a little more interesting sounding.
So it's just the Dsus4.
Seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12.
(guitar strumming)
And if you're strumming that, just play it.
Seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12.
From there, you go to a G major chord
and just do your regular fingerstyle pattern.
(guitar strumming)
But this time, I'm playing the A note
because I'm about to walk up,
or the A string because I'm about to walk up
to the C major chord that's next.
(guitar strumming)
And again, it's only for three beats here
so I'll just walk up the lowest three notes of the C chord.
(guitar strumming)
And then have another three beats,
(guitar strumming)
10, 11, 12 on the D chord.
So just walk up
(guitar strumming)
the lowest three notes of that D chord.
And if I'm strumming, I just strum three beats for eight.
So seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12.
So that whole measure with the G if you're strumming.
One, two, three, four, five, six,
seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12.
If you're doing fingerstyle.
(guitar strumming)
The next measure is just an E minor to a C add 9.
So switch to your E minor chord.
(guitar strumming)
And play your standard finger picking pattern.
(guitar strumming)
And the thumb on the last one for that pattern
hits the A string, that B note,
and then goes up to the C note
to start the next pattern on the C.
(guitar strumming)
And again, I'm starting on the A string
when it comes to the C chord.
Thumb, thumb, index, middle, and ring, index, thumb.
And this is split evenly on this measure
so if you're strumming,
just six beats of E and six beats of C major.
(guitar strumming)
Next measure is a D7 chord.
And the first six beats are on that D.
(guitar strumming)
So I just end up rolling up and coming right back down.
Thumb, index, middle, ring, middle, index.
So that's the pattern for that one.
It's kind of the same.
A little bit of variation on there.
And the next six beats of this bar.
You can either choose to play a D sharp diminished chord,
fully diminished 7th chord.
(guitar strumming)
Same finger picking pattern, just top four strings.
Roll up
(guitar strumming)
and roll back down.
Or you can do a B7 chord here.
If you do that, your thumb needs to go on the A string.
(guitar strumming)
And then your fingers get the top three strings.
You can just roll up and roll back down.
Truly up to you which one you want to use.
I like this one.
(guitar strumming)
It's a little more dramatic.
From here, things get a little more simpler.
We go to an E minor chord
and just play our finger picking pattern twice.
(guitar strumming)
And as I do this one, thumb on the low E string,
thumb on the A, index on the G,
two fingers on the top two strings,
back to the index, and the last thumb gets the A string.
That's the pattern that you do twice.
(guitar strumming)
From there, you move to a C chord
for the entire next measure.
And it's the same idea.
So you play the finger picking pattern twice.
You just switch your thumb
to starting on the A string for that chord.
(guitar strumming)
And slow this down as much as you need to.
It's really critical to get this finger picking pattern down
before trying to put it with the chords.
(guitar strumming)
After that, go back to an E minor chord,
another full measure or two rotations of the pattern.
(guitar strumming)
And during these full measures of E minor and C,
if you're strumming, just strum
one, two, three, four, five, six.
One, two, three, four, five, six.
If you want to count in 12,
one, two, three, four, five, six,
seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12.
Then same thing for C.
One, two, three, four, five, six,
seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12.
(guitar strumming)
So that's one full measure of E minor,
one full measure of C, and then you do that again.
Another full measure of E minor
with the same picking patterns
and another full measure of C with two picking patterns.
To kind of end the chorus of this song,
go back to a G major.
Play your pattern once.
(guitar strumming)
And then go to a D major chord
and play your pattern once
starting with your thumb on the D string.
(guitar strumming)
And just roll up and roll down.
You don't need to play two notes with your thumb.
Just thumb, index, middle, ring, and back down.
(guitar strumming)
And from there, you just go back to the intro of the song
alternating between the G major and the E minor.
(guitar strumming)
So the only things that you really need to watch out for.
Well first, learn the chords.
Second of all, learn the strumming pattern
and the fingerstyle pattern.
And then just look at the chord chart
and see when the chords are changing
and how many beats each chord gets
whether you're doing the strumming version of this
or you're doing the fingerstyle version.
Now, if you haven't heard Jeff Buckley's version of this,
I'd highly recommend going and listening to it.
Let me play through one rotation of this
so you can see what it sounds like altogether.
(guitar strumming)
So as just a little background info on this song.
The two main artists that made this song great,
Leonard Cohen and Jeff Buckley have both passed
and people really miss them,
but they made some really great art.
In fact, the story behind this song
is that Leonard Cohen had like 80 iterations
of the verses on this tune.
And to finish it, he was in his hotel room
in his underwear on the floor beating his head on the tile
to come up with the last version of this tune.
And that just goes to show you that great art
doesn't always come easy.
Thanks a lot much for watching.
Don't forget to like and subscribe.
Let me know what songs you'd like to learn
in the comments of this video.
See you later.
(guitar strumming)