in this video we're checking out how to play love story by taylor swift i'm using a capo at the second fret and i encourage you to do so as well it makes all the chords in this song much easier to play on guitar and we can even play this whole song without any barre chords so i really encourage you to grab your guitar and join in with me we're going to have lots of fun so with the kappa the second fret the chords to most of the song include a c major chord g major a minor [Music] and then an f major chord we're gonna use the easier f major seven so this is an f chord but really it feels like a c chord to us we're not barring and we're just having fingers one two and three like this on frets one two and three and uh they're on strings two three and four just here like this they're just staying right on their tips so make sure your fingers are curled right over thumb can sit just creeping over the top and it can stay there throughout every one of these chord changes so make sure your guitar is in tune we do need to tune your guitar every time before you play it before you play any song for it to sound correct and those changes would be the c to g a minor and then f that would be for like the intro and the chorus section it is only for the very last chorus that we have different chords to that so make sure you've got those chords down and we'll cover each section one at a time the intro is the same as the chorus and as i say it's that same progression but we want to be using a all down eighth strumming pattern so this just means we're we never actually counterweight in music we count one and two and three and four and because this is in a dance class this is a music class and we strum one and two and three and four and per bar but that means that we do have eight strums per bar so we call this eighth strumming i'm gonna do that in this fashion for the intro that'll be for one bar we need that twice for every chord that we've just played through like this [Music] four [Music] as i say we'll have a full play along later in this video but to give you some top tips for that my strumming is really narrow i'm really just strumming the middle four strings for the intro the verse and then the pre-chorus just nice and light like this very narrow strumming and very quietly and i'm lifting off of each chord before we get to beat one of the the the next bar when we change so one two three four one two three four and one so we lift off on the four and an arrival one takes a little bit of practice so be sure to work through that first let's move on to verse one now where we have the chord progression c major to f a minor to f and if you know how to play an f bar chord by all means play an f bar chord but we're going for this simpler option and then it's exactly the same again but we end on g not f same strumming pattern that would be like this join in if you wish one two three four [Music] a minor [Music] same thing again [Music] two three [Music] four a minor finishing con g [Music] then we're on the pre-chorus so the bit that comes before the chorus we have an f g major a minor to c same as that again all the way to the a minor and in that pre-chorus f then g now that last f and g is a little bit quicker it's only two beats of each and every chord progression uh every chord in the progression before that is for one bar this time so pre-chorus is as follows two three four [Music] to see [Music] much quicker changes for that section let's do it one more time and then we'll get on with the chorus two notice that early change i'm changing really early that's how we make it in time [Music] now that chorus has a huge lift to it it's a really brilliant chorus and one of the ways we can reflect that on acoustic guitar is by using a different strumming pattern which i would recommend we just do now this now i'm strumming all six strings all the time and it sounds nice and bright and open before it was like this now [Music] it's a big taylor swift chorus all right so let's play it nice and open keep everything ringing out as much as possible to do that we really want this dom on top so if you haven't covered this thing where we sit the fun thumb on top uh for your c chord and the a minor also and the f so for every chord apart from the g having that thumb muting the string six will sound really cool that's what allows us to make our choruses sound really big and open this is gonna go like so two three four down down [Music] let me show you that again up to speed two three from a c one two three [Music] of our two vowels of c but we go straight back to this and then we're into verse two which is the same as uh verse one all of that happens again exactly the same verse pre-chorus chorus the solo the violin solo is just exactly the same as the chorus so just keep that going exactly the same when we get to the bridge we have a minor f c and g so all the same chords but we only strum each of them once it's a low bridge we're bringing it down so a minor this is the aggregate and that chord progression just happens twice we're then into the end chorus but we start off playing it like we did our verses okay so we do that little strumming pattern a little bit of palm muting if you know how to do it outside of the palm of your hand just resting nice and gently here and we get this muting thing i have a few videos on that just search the internet for palm muting acoustic guitar and you'll you'll find some uh some ways to make it sound a bit more like this but just little strums is totally fine and this would be [Music] the whole chorus plays through f on a g and then we have keychain you don't know what a key changes is where we play different chords but it's going to sound exactly the same all the chords have just gone uh normally just up by a letter in most cases so um in this case we've gone from c to d the next letter in the alphabet the g has become an a the a minor has become a b minor and i you could play the b minor bar chord like this but we have this super easy very beginner friendly um way of playing a b minor which is technically a b minor seven and all we do is play your a major move your first finger up one on your third finger down one [Music] that is our easier b minor seven works in place of any b minor at all especially for these kind of simple acoustic guitar songs they're not easy there's a lot to this one but it is a simple acoustic song when it comes down to it and then after that we have a g major and that would be our final chorus let me show you that now this is from the marry me juliet section starting on a d chord this time that last chorus here we go one two three and four [Music] that happens twice [Music] one two three [Music] [Applause] [Music] ending on that d that is how to play love story by taylor swift check out these other tutorials on the screen now similar songs and i hope to see you next time you can watch one of those videos right now