Bitter Sweet Symphony Guitar Lesson – The Verve
In this Bitter Sweet Symphony guitar lesson video, I will show you how to play all the chords for this massive hit by The Verve.
I will also demonstrate an easy way to play the signature orchestral strings melody on the guitar.
The song and this lesson are is standard tuning E A D G B E.
The original synth/orchestral foundation of the song uses the chords E Bmin7 Dsus2 and A major. However, when Richard Ashcroft plays this song live he typically plays an E sus4 chord instead of the B min7. I will demonstrate his way of playing the chord progression first.
After that, I will show you how to play the original chord progression except I will play a B minor chord instead of the Bmin7. The reason I chose to do it this way is that in order to recreate the sound of the orchestral B min7 on the guitar, the A note would need to be in the higher register requiring it to be placed on the high E string. This sound great, except that note is supposed to stay there throughout the next two chords which is impossible on the guitar without using more bar chords. So I have omitted it altogether since I feel it sounds better with guitar arranged as just a B minor chord and it makes it easier to play as well.
After the chord, I will demonstrate how to play the instantly familiar string section melody that was sampled from the orchestral version of The Rolling Stones' "The Last Time".
It would be cool if you had a second guitarist that could play that melody since the four chord progression demonstrated earlier should continue through the entire song, including underneath that string section melody.
Enjoy!
Carl...
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