A beautiful Elvis Presley song released in 1961. Can’t Help Falling in Love.
A slow-moving, singable, open chords, repetitive picking pattern. This song is perfect for practising your fingerpicking. A 6-note pattern that is used in many other songs including Jeff Buckleys version of Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen.
We’re using the capo on fret 2 so we can play in the same key as the Elvis recording…..
THE SONG
We’ll start with the picking pattern today using a C chord (the first chord in the song). This will help us build consistency on one chord shape before moving onto the chord changes.
The Picking Pattern:
I would recommend in best practise to use the Thumb and Fingers in the diagram below, where possible! This will be a transferable technique for many songs in the future. If you are unable to, please use the fingers that work best for you.
”
When finger picking the C chord – Thumb = A string (5) | Index Finger = D string (4) | Middle Finger = G string (3) | Ring Finger = B string (2)
The picking sequence is in the order of these strings – A D G B G D. (We play this to a count of 6. 1 2 3 4 5 6)
Get used to the pattern on the C chord. Work on the even-ness and consistency. This can take some time. Once you have this lets move onto the rest of the chords.
The only times the strings you play changes is when the Thumb needs to go wherever the root note goes. eg. Em – the Thumb play low E (6), (The same with G & F Barre), For Am, B7, A7 & F/C you play the same strings as the C chord. For Dm & Fmaj7 the Thumb and Fingers all move down to play strings D G B e.
The Chords:
These are the chords for the whole song. If you don’t have your barre chords yet for the F, there are some subs below….
F Barre chord alternatives..
The Chord Sequences:
- This is Verses 1, 2 & 3
2. This is what I would call a Bridge
SONG STRUCTURE:
(The intro repeats C | G | C | G |)
Have fun playing this classic Elvis tune.
ENJOY!
For video references if you’d like a bit of learning reinforcement:
ACOUSTIC PLAY-THROUGH:
0 Comments