I'm going to show you how to play I Can't Help Falling In Love by Elvis
Presley. Let's do this.
Hi there I'm Tomas Michaud from Real Guitar Success. Now this song is not
difficult but i warn you ahead of time it does have 1 bar chord. First of all
I'm gonna show you a way around that if you're not good with bar chords yet and
second of all I'm gonna show you an easy strums to start off. But if you want
something a little more interesting, I'll show you a nice finger picking pattern
you can do with it also. So let's start out with the chords. By the way if you
wanted to do it in the same key as Elvis Presley. You can put your capo on the 2nd
fret but we're gonna do it without the cable here. Let's start out with a C
chord.
This chord is first finger here on the second string, second finger down on the
fourth string and third finger on the fifth string. If you need help with chord
diagrams I'll have a little lesson. I'll put a link to that. The next chord is a G
and there's a lot of ways we can play it. I'm gonna play it like this for this
song.
That's with my third finger over here on the sixth string third fret and the
second finger on the fifth string 2nd fret. If there's another way you prefer
that's fine really. I'm using my pinky on the first string -
A minor . First finger on the second string on the first fret and then my
second and third fingers are together on the fourth and third strings And then we
have an E chord.
Looks just like |A minor but everything moved over one string so now I've got my
second and third finger on the fifth string and fourth string and first
finger on the third string first fret. And then the F chord. I'll be using a
bar F. If you're still having a hard time with bar chords don't let that stop you
from playing this song. Here's an alternate F chord that you can use. So
it's just like the bar chord without a bar. Now you've got your first finger on
the second string first fret. By the way the first string and the sixth string
are not actually a part of this chord so we want to avoid those. When you're
strumming you can kind of just tilt your hand down a little and the first finger will
deaden it out. You can experiment with that. Now for a B7, it's a four finger
chord with the second finger on the fifth string second fret. I've got the
first finger on the first fret of the fourth string and then the third finger
on the second fret of the third string skipping the second string and I've got
the pinky on the first string second fret. Now in A7 chord I'll make it with
my second and third finger but I can't just as easily use my first and second
fingers. So I'll say second finger on the fourth
string second fret and then I got my third finger on the second string second
fret. The third string and the high E are open.
And finally the D minor chord that's the first finger on the first string first
fret, second finger on the third string second fret and the pinky on the second
string third fret. You can do the third finger too if you want but I like this too.
Now a good thing to do at this point is to just practice those chords. A good
thing to do is to start off with no strumming and just finger the chords.
You'll finger the chord, press down and then go to the next chord. Let's do that
together just once through. First the C chord, now the G chord press hard. Makes them
dance. A minor key, E chord, F chord either one bar or without the bar, B7, A7 and
finally D minor. Now once you've done that, go through and play each of the
chords one time. Do that until you can pretty well move from one chord to the
other then go on to try it with a song. Now let's add a simple strum. Here's the
strum we're going to use for this song. I'll do it on a C chord. It's gonna be
down, down, up, down, up, down, down, up, down, up.
No chords, it's just down, down, up, down, up, down, down, up, down, up.
This strum can be used throughout the entire song. Let me give you a sample how
it's going sound with the first verse. Wise men say only fools rush in But I can't help falling in love with you
Now you can see sometimes you play the strum one time on that chord and
sometimes you do the strum twice on a chord. Let's go through that verse
together one time. Start with your C chord, here we go - Wise men
only fools - C rush
and G , twice back to F
G - A minor again F. Falling in C G how about that? C
Now let's go through that bridge section. The song is pretty simple. It just has
the verse bridge verse bridge so there's no other chords. Once you learn the verse
and you learn the bridge you got it. Start with the E minor and we'll map it
out together. Go ahead and just do the best you can, play along. Start with A minor,
here we go. Like a river flows surely to the sea. Darling so it goes Some things are meant to be.
And then we go back into the verse. You'll notice each chord on the bridge
is just one strum so you don't have to keep track of when to do twice or once.
So that's the song with the strum. If you want to go a little bit farther I'll
show you a cool finger picking pattern you can use that'll make it sound even
more like the original Elvis version.
Here's a nice finger picking pattern that you can use for this song. Now we'll
start with a C chord just to get the pattern. Put your thumb on the fifth
string and your first finger on the third string, the second finger on the
second string and the third on the first string. Got it.
Now we're just gonna go thumb, first finger, second finger, third finger, back
to two and back to one so a little faster it's -
This same pattern can be used throughout the song but the bass note is going to
change. Let me go through the chords with you and show you what I mean. When we go
to the G chord we're going to move the thumb to the sixth string. Now that first
second and third fingers stay in the same place. It sounds like this.
Now notice the E minor is the same sixth string.
The F chord if you do a bar will be the same sixth string bass and I'll talk about
the alternate in a minute. Going on to the A minor that's the fifth string, Now
thumb on the fifth string
and then the A7 is the same.
The D minor is a little different. Were moving the thumb to the fourth string.
Now the first, second, and third fingers stay in the same place.
And finally the B7 we're going to use the fifth string for that bass. Thumb
goes on the fifth string.
Now for the alternate F chord, we're gonna need to move our fingers a little
bit. Thumb goes on the fifth string for the bass but the first finger will need
to go on the fourth string, second finger on the third string and the third finger
on the second string. We will basically need to avoid that first
trick because it's not part of the chord so it sound like this.
Not bad. Okay, let me show you what that sounds like with the song. Wise men say only fools rush in But I can't help falling in love with you
Okay and once through ,through the bridge to give you an idea what that sounds
like we're going to just do one picking pattern for each chord in the bridge. Like a river flows surely to the sea Darling so it goes
Some things are meant to be.
I kinda missed the D base note but it still sound good actually I hit the A
and it can work. Thanks for joining me through this lesson. I included the chord
pattern and the words down in the description field along with the
numbering for the picking patterns so it'll help you remember. If you enjoyed
this, please let me know in the comments. Let me know if you didn't enjoy it. I'd
love to hear from you and I look forward to seeing again soon.
Remember guitar playing is a journey not a destination and you deserve to
love your guitar playing journey. Bye for now.