Check out this free lesson from Guitar Control from instructor Sean Daniel on How to Play Norwegian Wood by The Beatles. This is one of the most popular guitar riffs of all time and with the step-by-step video instruction and included tabs (click the link) you will be rockin’ this classic in record time.
Introduction
What’s going on everybody? Sean Daniel with Guitar Control here and today is very special because we’re learning a classic Beatles song about one of the worst tinder dates ever called Norwegian Wood and it’s really cool song because it incorporates a little bit of lead playing techniques between chords and we’re gonna play it without a capo even though you’re supposed to play it with capo on the 2nd fret because I’m not a capo elitist. So if you want to play along with it just say capo on the 2nd fret and do everything else. Basically it sounds a little bit like this… So really cool song, very fun song to play; I think it’s actually my favorite Beatles song to play.
Norwegian Wood By The Beatles
Starting off Norwegian Wood by The Beatles with this D suspended 2 chord, it’s really just a D major chord, but really you only need 2 fingers to play it. This is also in 3/4 time signature so it’s gonna be like 1 2 3 1 2 3 and that’s very helpful to count because we’re gonna start off by playing 3 counts of a chord and then three counts of kind of like a riff.
Alright so take your pointer finger and grab the second fret on the G string and take your middle finger and grab the third fret on the B string and also take whatever finger is on your mouse right now to click the link below to grab the tab that I have prepared for this fantastic lesson forthcoming.
So basically we’ve got open D to G chords and three B’s, they’re gonna kind of focus in on right now the first beat of three. Every bar is gonna be three counts, this gonna be the open D string okay and we’re gonna simplify this first before we get into like the more official pattern, we’re just gonna go one two three. Okay so all down strokes to start off with until you get the hang of it, then we’ll add the other part. Down stroke on the D string and then two down strokes on the G and B strings together. If you get the open E string in there – that’s fine, don’t worry about it, so that sound good one two three.
Okay so that’s three counts, one bar of a chord, now we’re gonna add kind of a riff for the next three beats. So if I count to three twice, one two three one two three one two, it’s gonna be just like that the whole time. So first chord now we’re gonna grab these next three beats your four fingers gonna start just where it was. Do a hammer-on from two to four back – to open G one two three one two three.
Now the next bar is gonna start on the fourth fret of the D string, now we’re gonna do this as the root note or the bass note of the next three counts on the chord. Okay now the fourth fret on the D string is actually an F sharp, which is also in a D major chord, so it’s really just kind of like an inversion of a D chord; inversion is just a chord where you don’t play the root note in the bass, so it’s same thing but subtenant.
Now we can add this, for we already have, so open D two three one two three one two three one two. The next one is really just two D open G chords back to that F sharp chord on the fourth fret of the D string, so one two one two three. The next set I’m thinking of these, I’m pairing them even though we’re saying it borrows three counts, I’m pairing a chord with the riff; so the first pair like that second pair and then the end. Okay so the third pairing that we have after you get the two D open G for D chords we’re gonna go back to the very first bar that we did open and then to down strokes on that D, one two three.
So the next pairing is a kind of riff that we have 3 A open G to a opening, so just a little four note riff which is gonna bring us into the downbeat of that last part. So after we get to there we’re just gonna hang out on this chord to kind of end the sequence and that’s really the majority of the song. There’s only two parts; the riff chord kind of hybrid part and then just some really basic easy chords.
Conclusion
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Thanks for watching Norwegian Wood by The Beatles and have a great day.
