I’ll Be There for You Guitar Lesson – Friends theme song by The Rembrandts

Genre:

Difficulty:
Length: 15:16

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Wikipedia page
Artist website
Music video

• Barre chords
• Chord embellishments
• Lead guitar techniques
• Open chords
• Strumming patterns

In today’s lesson, we’ll learn to play the theme song of Friends, a very popular sitcom that ran for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004. The song was recorded by The Rembrandts, and is called I’ll Be There For You.

The song is played at a quick 190 bpm, so it’s rather fast. We’ll be in the key of A major, so you know we’ll have chords from this key.

We’ll start out by learning to play that ever-so-popular intro riff. I would wager that it is one of the most recognizable riffs for an entire generation since Friends was such a massive hit back in the day. Most people won’t know the name of the band who recorded the song, but they’ll know it was the theme song from Friends 🙂

After the intro riff, we’ll start learning loads of chords we’ll be using throughout the different sections of I’ll Be There for You. We’ll tackle the verse, followed by the bridge, interlude, chorus, and solo chords.

The strumming pattern we’ll use will be very typical of the song, but as always, feel free to alter it as you like.

We’ll also learn a few embellishments you can use while strumming certain parts of the song, which will incorporate a melody line into your strumming. You’ll be using your pinky for the melody notes while strumming.

As I mentioned, I’ll Be There for You uses loads of chords. Barre chords as well. To make things a bit easier, I’ll show you how you can use relative major and minor chords, to replace barre chords. Watch out for those sections in the video lesson.

I’ll Be There for You song details

The theme song to Friends, I’ll Be There for You, was recorded in 1994, and was used throughout the life of the sitcom. It was recorded by The Rembrandts, but other than themselves, it was co-written by the producers of Friends, David Crane, and Marta Kauffman, as well as a few others.

The song was written specifically as a theme song, so its original length was under 1 minute long. Later, it was re-recorded to become a pop song, lasting 3 minutes.

The music video to I’ll Be There for You features the members of the band, along with the cast of Friends.

I’ll Be There for You charts and rankings

The song had mixed positions worldwide. It was most popular in the US, thanks to the popularity of Friends there, where it was at the top of the airplay charts for 8 weeks.

Elsewhere in the world, it didn’t reach the top of the charts.

• U.S. Billboard Hot 100: 17
• U.S. Billboard Top 40 Mainstream: 1
• UK Singles: 3
• Canada: 1
• Australia: 3
• Netherlands: 20
• France: 25
• Ireland: 3
• New Zealand: 3
• Norway: 5
• Sweden: 34

If you want to refine the skills you learned in I’ll Be There for You, check out these lessons on songs by clicking these links:
Barre chords / Chord embellishments / Lead guitar techniques / Open chords / Strumming patterns

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