Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata Intro On Acoustic Guitar – Made Easy on Video

Hey, how’s it going this is Darrin Goodman with Guitar Control, we’re going to look at the very beginning part of “Moonlight Sonata” by Beethoven. This lesson aimed for beginners, this piece of music gets harder and harder and harder as it goes along and it gets to where it is far beyond the beginner level there’s lots of parts of it that I can’t even play because you know I’m not a classical guitarist per se, but it’s a cool piece highly recognizable piece originally down the piano and again so it’s been transposed for guitar.

Click on the Tabs button to follow the chords and tabs.

Starting off, using just your basic A minor chord that hopefully you already know the 5th string and open 2nd fret of the 4th string with your second finger 2nd fret of the 3rd string with your third finger and first string of the 2nd string with your first finger and 1st string A minor and here in a minute we’re going to take a look what the right hand is doing, well right now we’re just going to look at the left fretting hand so you do A minor and you pick the 5th and 4th string simultaneous followed by the 3rd and then the 2nd and then the 3rd, 2nd and 1st, three more times, then we move it to the next chord which is A minor over G, so you keep your fingers in the shape of A minor and then you use your fourth finger to pick up the 3rd fret of the 6th string which is your new G note and now you’re going to pick the 6th and 4th string simultaneously followed by the 3rd and then the 2nd and then the 3rd, 2nd and 1st three more times after that.

Now moving on to the third measure we have F and it’s the barre chord, F major barre chords so we’re going to take our first finger and we’re going to barre all the way across all six strings at the 1st fret and then your second finger will get the 2nd fret of the 3rd string, third finger gets the 3rd fret of the 5th string and fourth finger gets the 3rd fret of the 4th string as an F major and the picking on this is the same as it was on the A minor over G, so we’re going to pick six on the 6th and 4th string together followed by 3 and then 2 and then 3, 2, 1, or 4, 3, 2, after that. So 6 and 4, 3, 2, 4, 3, 2, then we have B flat over D so for this you’re just going to take your first finger and you’re going to barre across the 3rd fret of the 3rd and 2nd string and then your third finger is going to get the 5th fret of the 5th string. Now you could use your fourth finger if that’s more comfortable but it just shouldn’t be it’s a fairly simple reach and now we’re going to pick the 5th and 4th string together and then the 3rd and then the 2nd and then the 4th, 3rd and 2nd that is the first three measures.

So that brings us to the fourth measure and this grabbing this cord is probably the hardest part of this whole piece so far so we have this chord C sharp minor over E, so we have the 2nd fret of the 4th string with your second finger and the 1st fret of the 3rd string with your first finger and then the 3rd fret of the 2nd string and you can either use your third or your fourth finger. I find it easier to use my fourth finger because it makes my hand feel awkward. What I have to do is put my fourth finger down it’s fairly simple and we’re going to pick the 6th and 4th string together then the 3rd and then the 2nd then we switch back to A minor and we pick 4th, 3rd, 2nd, string and now we switch to A suspended 2 over E so you simply take your first finger off and leave your second and third finger where they are and you’re going to pick the 6th and the 4th string together and then the 3rd and then the 2nd and now we switch to G sharp minor over D and we simply do is just put our first finger down on the 1st fret of the 3rd string and then the 4th and 2nd string are open and then to make it end and resolves let’s go back to an A minor and give us strum. Like I said this is not the complete song, this is just the first part of it so starting on the fourth measure you got that that awkward chord to A minor, A suspended 2 over E, G sharp minor over E and then back to A minor so for that C sharp minor’ over E, what I really recommend you to do because it’s an awkward chord to grab, so I would recommend you to do is put your fingers on for the chord and then take them away and practice.

When you’re reaching for your fingers into that shape you don’t want to have to be doing one finger at a time, the song is very slow but you still don’t want to have that much space in there where you’re trying to grab one finger at a time, so just practice separately doing this until you can do it. Now let’s switch over and take a look at what I’m doing with my right hand or picking hand rather all right so all the lowest notes that in this is either the 5th string or the 6th string, you’ll be doing those notes with your thumb and then the 4th string with your first finger, the 3rd string with your second finger and the 2nd string with your third finger. So we’re starting off on that A minor, so I need to play back at the 1st major. I need to play the 5th and the 4th string together. So I’m with my thumb on 5 and then my first finger on 4 and I’m doing this pinch motion, you don’t want where your plucking away. You want your hand to stay in position so I play them together and then the 3rd string with my second finger and then the 3rd string with my third finger and then after that it goes back to the 4th, 3rd and then 2nd for 3rd and 2nd for 3rd and 2nd again that would be into the 4th string with your first finger 3rd string with your second finger 2nd string with your third finger that was switched to the A minor over G, so we just move our fourth finger up keep aiming the shape of A minor and move our fourth finger up to grab the 3rd fret of the 6th string and now my first second and third finger stays still on those strings with my thumb moves from the 5th string to the 6th string.

Now I’m going to play the 6th and the 4th strings simultaneously and again I want to do that same pinch technique switch to the F major barre chord same thing doing 6 and 4 together followed by 3, 2, 3, and then 4, 3, 2, so then the B flat over D and now I’m back to my thumb being on the 5th string so 5 and 4 together 3, 2, 4, 3, 2, and now to that awkward C sharp minor, C sharp minor over E, so now I’m going to back with my thumbs back on the 6th string again 6 and 4 together 3 to switch to A minor 4, 3, 2, A suspended 2, so just remove your first finger to make A minor into A suspended 2 over E, and thumbs back to the 6th string again so 6 and 4 together, 3 to the G sharp minor over D, 4, 3, 2, and then for A minor starting on major 4.

I hope you enjoyed that and got something out of it if you liked the video give me a thumbs up be sure to subscribe on our You Tube Channel and we’ll see you in our next video lessons, thanks for watching.

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