Shawn Mendes: Why

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Summary: Why

This laid back track is all about the main set of piano chords, that present a really cool challenge as guitar players... Where can we play these lush sounding chords on the acoustic? Well, Simone takes you through how to play the chords and there are definitely some challenging shapes, so warm up and get ready!

The Chords: The main loop

As the chords are based on the piano part, we are playing them in a more intermediate position to get them as close as possible to the record! The four chord loop is Ebmaj7 /// Fm9 /// Cm7 /// Fm7/Ab ///. Here are those chords:

The Arpeggio: Under the solo

For this section (and it's the only slightly different section) you have some very slightly different chords. The chords follow the same order as shown below, each for one bar. The key thing is the arpeggio pattern, which Simone walks you through in the video very carefully! Here are those chords:



    Keep Learning: Fingerstyle!

    If you love the sound of this track but struggle with the arpeggio sections, you may want to take a look at our Travis picking course, where we introduce you to fingerstyle playing. It's a full course, and totally free (As is everything on the site). You can find it here: Travis Picking Guitar Lesson Course.

Ready to move on? Remember to check out every lesson in this unit first – then try the next unit...

Youth

This track is driven by a really beautiful fingerstyle guitar part, utilising a very beautiful chord progression. The guitar part is essential a loop that moves through the whole song, and Simone walks you through exactly how to play this cool part!