Sugar Guitar Lesson – Maroon 5

Genre:

Difficulty:
Length: 10:24

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Wikipedia page
Artist website
Music video

• Barre chords
• Capo
• Rhythm guitar
• Strumming patterns

Sugar is a song all guitarists should learn since it can really improve one’s rhythm guitar skills. The song uses 4 chords altogether, so learning those is the easy part.

The hard part is actually keeping time and rhythm during the entire song when you play along with it. That is a challenge, as you will soon see, and this is what makes learning it so beneficial.

The song is written in the key of Gb, which is not a common key. It uses a I – iii – vi – V chord progression. The chords will be Gb – Bbm7 – Ebm7 – Db if you are playing barre chords. If you’d rather use open chords, I’ll teach you the open chord versions as well in the lesson, for which you’ll need a capo at fret 1 to stay in the key of the original song. I would recommend you use this song to practice your barre chords though, you’ll thank me in the long run 😉

We’ll start our guitar lesson on Sugar by learning the chords to the song.

Once we get the chords to Sugar out of the way, we’ll learn several ways you could play them in the song to make it a bit more interesting.

In the original song, during the intro, they just have a single strum of each chord lasting for 1 bar. You can do that, but if you’re not accompanied by a band, it’ll sound pretty boring. Instead, try using the fingerpicking pattern I teach you in the lesson.

If you’d rather strum, I’ll teach you several strumming patterns with varying difficulties. Experiment with them all, and work towards the hardest one. It sounds really cool when you get it up to speed, it’s a very nice pop-rock strumming pattern that you can use in other songs as well.

In fact, you can try creating your own chord progressions using, and apply this strumming pattern. It’ll sound great, trust me.

Sugar song details

Sugar was released by Maroon 5 on their album V in 2014. It was the 3^rd single from the album. It has a really catchy disco-funk-pop feel to it, something which Maroon 5 really excels at.

The song has a very memorable music video, where the band becomes wedding crashers. It was inspired by one of my favorite movies, Wedding Crashers. If you haven’t seen it, make sure to check it out. Both the movie and the Maroon 5 music video on youtube.

Sugar chart performance and rankings

The song performed well worldwide, reaching the top of the charts in many countries around the globe. Here are a few of its international rankings:

• US Billboard Hot 100: #2
• US Adult Contemporary (Billboard): #2
• US Adult Top 40 (Billboard): #1
• Hungary (Single Top 40): #2
• Ireland (IRMA): #5
• Canada Hot AC (Billboard): #1
• Croatia (Airplay Radio Chart): #3
• Lebanon (OLT 20): #1
• Mexico Airplay (Billboard): #1
• Serbia (IFPI): #1
• Slovakia (Rádio Top 100): #1
• Turkey (Number One Top 40): #1
• UK Singles (Official Charts Company): #7

If you want to refine the skills you learned in Sugar, check out these lessons on songs by clicking these links:
Barre chords / Capo / Rhythm guitar / Strumming patterns

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