Guitar Lesson - Imagine by John Lennon

Hey kids, your guitar sage here. Today, we’re going to learn how to play “Imagine” by John Lennon. This is a really happy song and a lot of open chords so that’s great. That’s what we’ve been going for, a really simple guitar songs, beginner songs that we can play some open chords. Pick up a guitar, play at a party and make everybody happy, right? That’s what we’re going for happy to see your kids, right? Yes, okay. Good. Lets do Imagine, and I’m going to play it through and then we’ll talk about the particulars, okay. This is a piano song but we’re converting it into a guitar song. I capoed it at the fifth fret, it makes it really easy so you play a bunch of C’s and G’s is what is happening. Well originally, the song is in the key of C but to prevent you from playing an F, it's still in the key of C but I capoed it and it feels like G, okay. If you want, you could play this in the key of C. a lot of people would and that’s totally fine too but my point here is to get you guys that don’t have as much experience to be able to play this song right away, okay. Pardon my singing, pardon my lyrics. I don’t know the song other than what just goes on the radio and that sort of thing but here we go, it's going to go something like this. It's a G, C, G, C, G, C, G. So here’s when we start moving a little bit, we’ve got a C, an E minor 7 with a B in the bass, an A minor, AM7, with a G in the bass, don’t worry we’ll go over all of these, a D with an F# in the base for two measures, and that’s the verse. Let’s go in to the chorus [Demonstration] Here we go. This is the deal, on this tune that’s it, okay. That’s the verse and the chorus. It's simple. A baby could play this, okay. Seriously, if a baby has big hands they could play this song, okay. All right, here we go. Let’s talk about the verse, okay. Let me stop really quickly. I’m looking at this chart. The chart that I’ve made up for this song so it's really easy for me to kind of just look at it and play along, okay. It’s kind of a little bit harder if you don’t have the chart. If want to get to hold on to this chart or any of the techniques that I’m using here today. I’ve covered it in eBook on yourguitarsage.com and if you don’t have it yet, go get it especially if you’re viewing and checking my videos all the time because it will really support everything that we’re doing. We’re doing a series of these classic songs. The eBook is specifically designed to support these songs. If you don’t understand something here, check out my other videos on strumming and open chords; and all that stuff and get the ebook, okay. The intro is going to go G. Someone asked me about my G the other day. They said, “You’re not playing a G,” with all you’re respects at Your Guitars Sage. But this is a G. I just don’t put my finger down. My preference, I just don’t put my finger down there. I could, I like the sound better, lifting y finger and muting that fifth string with my middle finger here. I laid it on the sixth string, muted the fifth, and played the rest, okay. The intro is G for four, C for four, G for four, C, and here’s the verse. Everything has four beats, back and forth with the G to the C, back to G again, G. Now, the next two measures are split measures. Split measure means there are two chords that share a measure; okay, instead of getting four beats like what we’ve been doing, they get two a piece. The first two here is going to going to be a C, that right there, the second for beats three and four is going to be an Em7. Take your middle finger right there on the second fret on the fifth string, take your thumb and mute the sixth string, that’s all your chords. It's the easiest chord that you can play. Monkey’s can play it and it's no joke, A minor for your one and two, next chord is an Am7 with a G on the bass. Here’s an A minor, you know it. It's your friend. Lift your ring finger and then you’ll get Am7. Take that spare finger that you just got and smack it right there down on your G, then the G that you normally are playing for a G chord and play this pretty little bitty, okay. Now, you’ve heard that muted purposely. You don’t have to you could hear it opened. I like it better muted, okay. Basically that’s you’re Am7, that’s you’re Am 7, that’s you’re A minor 7 with a G in the bass, a D with an F# in the bass. So you play your regular D bring your thumb around and grab that F#, and you play that for two measures. Chorus, here we go. These are all split measures, okay. There are eight measures here for the chorus. All are split measures except for the very last measure, which is just the G, okay. Here we go; it’s going to go, a C for two, a D for two, a G for two, a B7 for two, you may not know a B7 but we’ll go ahead and do it. A B7 is when you take your second finger and lay it on the second fret of the fifth string, first finger first fret, fourth on the fourth string, third finger second fret of the third string and pinky on the second fret of string one. Sends the old low E string we’re not going to play it. So the thumb it or mute it with this fat finger right with this guy right here and you’re going to play this [Demonstration], it's a little tricky at first. It's a little cramp but its one of my favorite chords. So we got C for two, D for two, G for two, B7 for two, C for two, B7 for two, D for two, B7 for two. The next line is C for two, D for two, G for two, B7 for two, yes, we did repeat all of that for three times, C for two, D for two, and that big happy ending on the G. All right, there you go kids. That’s the whole tune in it. It’s really very simple and again this is written for the piano so it's all the right white keys and makes it easier; but on a guitar I think it's easier to just slide it up here and then you don’t have to play an F chord nor bar chords so that’s what makes it a little bit easier. Okay kids, again if you need any techniques or that this is too advanced for you check out my other videos especially on my home page at Your Guitar Sage at YouTube and you’re going to see things like strumming, open chords, how to read charts and all that good stuff. If want to get it hands on the chart, get your hands on the eBook check out yourguitarsage.com and on youtube.com at yourguitarsage.com. Go and get it kids, so I can feed the cats, okay. They’re hungry. They’re locked up in a room right now but Daddy needs money for the cats. Get the eBook kids. Go get it, all right. Go practice. Goodbye. See you.