Hey There Delilah is an ideal song for advanced beginners to learn, with its pleasant tune and engaging chord progression making learning it enjoyable and exciting! It features an intricate chord progression which provides extra challenge when learning it for performance purposes.
Tom Higgenson of Plain White T’s wrote this soft love song after meeting competitive distance runner Delilah DiCrescenzo and recording it with fingerpicked acoustic guitar accompaniment in studio.
Verse 1: D
Major triads can always be found four frets or two whole tones higher than their respective root notes, and contain a perfect fifth, making the sound stable and undiscordant without dissonance or discordant overtones.
As guitarists know, C major and D minor chords refer to various intervals that help connect what you learn here with chords you probably already use. Paying attention to these intervals will enable us to build bridges between this material and what is familiar for you.
Verse 2: G
Chords are groups of notes played together to produce a fuller sound than individual strings alone. A triod, which contains only three notes, is the simplest form of chord.
Typically speaking, major chords will have an upbeat and happy sound while minor ones will tend to produce sadder or melancholic notes. But that doesn’t have to be the case! Extender notes can change the sound of any chord.
Verse 3: A
At its core, chords are combinations of three notes played simultaneously and are an essential component of music’s language. Their complexity grows as your understanding and capabilities increase.
This C major triad contains a minor interval (semitone). To play it, count your fingers on your left hand as follows: index finger = 1, middle finger = 2 and ring finger = 3. Press each fret with your fingers until all three strings have been played through completely.
Verse 4: B
Welcome! There is much information here which may seem intimidating at first, but don’t let that dissuade you. Instead, embrace it all as an opportunity and don’t allow it to overwhelm you.
Chords are built upon intervals. A major chord can be constructed by stacking together its root note (in any key) with its first, third and fifth notes of scale to create an intervalled structure.
Chord shapes are transposable, meaning you can take one shape and transpose it up or down the fretboard without changing its form – this makes them an invaluable addition to your chord toolbox!
Verse 5: C
These chords are beginner-friendly shapes that are simple for newcomers to learn, known as triads and consisting of 3 notes separated by an interval of a third.
Glancing over a chord diagram, imagine that each finger on your index finger represents one in a chord diagram: 1, 2, and 3. Press your fingers into these spaces to form the chord.
Verse 6: D
Chords are essential building blocks of songwriting. Country music has long been associated with three chords and the truth.
A triad is the simplest form of chord, made up of three notes separated by an interval of a third.
This first diagram depicts a C major triad, fully transposable across the fretboard.
Verse 7: E
Chords at their core consist of three notes. As your understanding and skills advance, more advanced chords will emerge but for now the fundamentals remain simple.
Number your fingers: index finger 1, middle finger 2 and ring finger 3. Press each of these fingertips against the frets of your guitar until you find an acceptable sound for that string.
Contrary to open chords, bar chords can easily be transposed onto other parts of the fretboard.
Verse 8: F
Guitar chord theory can be intimidatingly complicated and academic, so these beginner open chords will help get you off to a flying start with its basics. These open chords are found across genres and provide plenty of repertoire options.
Use the C Major scale and form triads by choosing three alternate notes from it that are one third apart – this will form either a major or minor chord.
Verse 9: G
A chord is made up of three or more notes played together and can become increasingly complex as your playing skill and knowledge of music grow.
Here we see a major triad with C as its root note. There are four frets between it and E and three and a half tones between E and G, as shown here.
Chord charts (or diagrams) display an image of a guitar neck arranged vertically, with black lines representing strings and white dots showing where your fingers should go. An X denotes muted strings while Os represent open strings.
Verse 10: A
Bar chords differ from open chords by being fully “transposable”, which means you can move their shape up and down the fretboard without altering its form. This makes playing them much simpler once your fingers have developed some strength.
Triads are composed of three notes separated by a specific interval. A major triad can sound upbeat while minor ones will produce a sadder and melancholic tone.