In this video
I show you how to play the song "Lean On Me" by Bill Withers. Some of you will likely remember this one from Level 2 of the beginners course where we looked at an easy 3 chord version of this song for total beginner (see that video further down this page).
In this lesson, we'll be looking at a simple chords + melody version of this song with NO CAPO. We'll use a pick to play the notes of the melody, but also add strumming to flesh out the chords, which uses a few early intermediate level techniques. This is also a great way to learn how to play and sing at the same time!
Scale used - C major Scale
Here's a video on the C major scale alone, which is used to form the melody of this song. It's best to learn this scale BEFORE learning the song above!
On instruments such as piano or even singing, the C major scale would often be covered in a beginners lesson 1. On guitar, this gets pushed back after chords because many people simply want to strum chords along to songs as their main goal.
Learning this scale along with other techniques away from chord playing is ESSENTIAL to keep improving beyond a beginner level - so don't miss out!
Alternative Beginner Tutorial with chords E, A & D
This is the first song in a series of songs guitar with three EASY chords on guitar, E, A and D major! For this version, we'll need to use a capo at the 3rd fret to play along to the original recording.
Sorry, no chord sheet is available for this song for copyright reasons, but you can use the video to create you own.