Someone Like You Guitar Lesson – Adele

Genre:

Difficulty:
Length: 18:35

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Wikipedia page
Artist website
Music video

• Capo
• Chord changes
• Open chords
• Strumming patterns

Someone Like You was absolutely the biggest hit of 2011, it is undeniably a great song.

If you listen to the original song, you'll notice that it uses just one single instrument, a piano. If you listen even more carefully, you'll notice that the pianist is actually just playing arpeggiated chords.

The piano accompaniment to the vocals can be effectively recreated on the guitar. The beauty of the song is its simplicity, so you will be playing this song very quickly.

Beginner guitarists will love this song as well, as it uses simple basic chords.

First of all, you need to know that this song is in the key of A. To make things simpler, add a capo to the 2nd fret of your guitar, otherwise, you would have to transpose it, and get a bunch of barre chords. Let’s make things easier for now, and use the capo.

The guitar lesson on Someone Like You kicks off by teaching you the picking pattern you'll be using all throughout the song. It is repetitive, so make sure you learn it well and get it programmed into your fingers. Your thumb will always be plucking the lowest string in any given chord, so make sure you move your thumb in between the strings accordingly. Someone Like You is played at 67 beats per minute, and the picking pattern is made up of four 16th notes.

After learning the picking pattern, we’ll learn the intro to Someone Like You, which also acts as the verse. It is made up of 4 simple chords. Once you know the intro, we’ll learn the bridge, which has a very nice stylistic element at the end, to place emphasis on the chorus, which follows the bridge. The chorus gets a slight twist picking-wise, but rest assured, it is very slight. You’ll also want to make sure you play the chorus just a bit more intensely than the other parts of the song. We’ll also learn another bridge section, which is played towards the end of the song.

As I mentioned, this is a very easy song to learn even for beginners, and it’s great playing along with the original recording. Doing this will really develop your sense of rhythm and chord change speeds, so I highly recommend it.

If you are a more advanced guitarist, this song is still a great one to play along with. I really think that its beauty lays in its simplicity, so I would not recommend coming up with elaborate plucking patterns, just keep it simple.

Someone Like You song details

Someone Like You was released in 2011 by Adele on her album titled 21. The only instrument in the song is a piano, which is played by the co-writer/co-producer, Dan Wilson.

The song speaks about Adele’s broken relationship, and how she comes to terms with it. The black & white music video features Adele in Paris, walking through the streets sad, alone.

A critic's quote puts it very nicely: "Romantic pain has never been so beautiful."

Someone Like You awards and chart rankings

The song reached the No. 1 position in most countries across the globe and won the Grammy for Best Pop Solo Performance at the 2012 Grammy Awards.

If you want to refine the skills you learned in Someone Like You, check out these lessons on songs by clicking these links:
Capo / Chord changes / Open chords / Strumming patterns

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