Valerie (Intermediate Guitar Lesson)

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Hey! In this guitar lesson I show you how to play “Valerie” as recorded by Amy Winehouse and Mark Ronson. This version closely resembles what they’re playing on the recording and is a bit more challenging than my usual lessons. A couple weeks ago I made an “easy” version of this song, so if this is a bit too challenging, you should check that one out here: https://goodguitarist.com/valerie-amy-winehouse-mark-ronson/

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If you want extra help or explanations for any of the stuff in this tutorial, I recommend taking a look at our eBooks covering the basics of Rhythm and Lead guitar. They’re free for all of our subscribers. You can find them here: https://goodguitarist.com/learn-rhythm-guitar/

Also, I was lucky enough to be able to have my friend Carmina Bolinao sing the intro! If you wanna check her out here’s a link to her music: http://www.youtube.com/alacarmina
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The tutorial begins with the chord shapes necessary for the verse. They’re Ebmaj7 and Fmin7. They are technically barre chords but are much easier, physically, than the F barre chord shape. If you need help with barre chords I have a series that goes over the essential, need-to-know stuff. You can find it here: https://goodguitarist.com/basic-barre-chords/

Anyway, once we figure out the chord shapes, we learn a strumming pattern that we can play over them. It’s the same one that we do in the easy version of this tune, so it’s not too difficult. After that we practice putting it all together before moving on to the pre-chorus.

The pre-chorus requires us to learn 3 new chords – all of them are barre chords (oh no!!). If you’re ok with your barre chords this is actually pretty easy since they’re all (almost) the exact same shape, and we just move it up and down the neck a couple frets at a time.

After this, we take a look at the chorus, which requires us to learn a new strumming pattern. And we also show you how to incorporate the horn parts into our guitar voicings. This isn’t necessary but is a really good way to make the chorus stand out from the verse (otherwise it would be exactly the same).

As long as you take your time with everything you will be rewarded by being able to play something above and beyond basic chords and strumming.

Hope you enjoy the lesson!
-James