Chords for 7 LEVELS of the PURPLE RAIN Intro!

Listen to [Bb] this. _ _ _ _ _
_ _ Isn't that kind of magical that when I did it right, your brain just knows it?
Hey everybody, it's Mike here from The Art of Guitar.
I cannot believe it's been 39 years since Purple Rain came out.
I still remember the day my cousin brought over the VHS tape of [E] the movie, and we just
sat there and watched it over and over again.
We never got sick of it.
And being from Minnesota was a huge deal to see our home [G] state represented in such a huge movie.
So I've been a huge Prince fan ever since, and I've seen a lot of people play the intro
to Purple Rain in different ways, and I thought it would be really fun to celebrate the anniversary
to show you seven levels of how I've seen Purple Rain being played in the past.
And that can allow people at any level, whether you're just starting out, maybe you just know
a few open chords, or if you've been playing a long time, to play some kind of version
of this song.
Level one is for anyone who just wants to play along to the song, but they don't want
to play the complicated chords like we're going to play later on.
All you really need to do is play G major, _ [Em] E minor, _ [D] D major, and [C] C major.
That's going to be the correct progression.
You're not going to be in the right key yet, but we'll take care of that in a second.
So it'll sound something like [G] this. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Em] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _
I've seen a lot of singer-songwriters play it like that.
If you want it to be the right key, just grab a capo if you have one, throw it on the [Bb] third
fret, and then you'll be in the right key. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Gm] _ _ [E] Isn't that cool?
The second level of playing the Purple Rain intro is just to play power chords.
Now some people might not think that this would sound full enough, but you'd be [Bb] really surprised.
I'm using my chorus pedal today, the CE-2, and it actually makes smaller chords sound
bigger _ by its nature of being a chorus pedal.
So what we're going to do is we're going to play right here, we're going to play the fifth
string first fret, B flat, make a power chord, and do the extra octave.
_ _ _ _ If you do that and move it around from B flat to G to F, and then all the way up to E flat,
you could sound pretty close. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [F] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Eb] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Bb] _ _ _ _ _ If you just turn those power chords into full bar chords, we'd have a B flat major, _ _ _ [Gm] G minor,
_ [F] F major, _ _ E flat [Eb] major. _ _ _
[Bb] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[Gm] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[F] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[Eb] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[Bb] _ _ _ _ [A] The next version, level four, is a version I've played a lot in the past before I really
knew how to play the song.
So what we have is the A sus 2 chord.
_ _ _ _ I love that chord.
It sounds nice and open, and it's very easy.
It's just two fingers, _ just like [Gb] that.
After that, we do something kind of interesting, and that's why this is at level four and not
level three, because we have to utilize our thumb, which can be tricky for some people.
So we're going to bring it over the top, and we're going to fret the sixth string, second
fret, which is F sharp, and then we're going to touch the fifth string to kill it.
So we have the sixth string sounding, [A] we have the fifth string dead.
[Gbm] So the thumb has to do double duty.
Put that together with what we already had, we get this. _ _ _
_ _ [A] It's a very beautiful chord.
Okay, so those are the first two chords.
We have A sus 2, _ _ A sus 2 over [Gbm] F sharp.
_ _ _ _ [E] The next chord, you can just do E major. _ _ _ _
And then the last chord, I want you to do a D sus 2.
So we're just going to play a regular D chord without [D] the middle finger exposing the open E string. _ _
_ _ It gives it a little bit more of that actual color that the song has.
So put those [A] together. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Gbm] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _
Now to do it in the actual key of the song, once again, we need the good old capo.
We're going to put it at the first [Abm] fret this time, [Bb] and then do everything you just did,
and you'll be in the correct key. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Gm] _ _ _ _ _
_ Isn't that great?
Level five is a lot like level four, except we change one of the chords and we actually
do a few transitional [Bb] notes.
So this gets kind of interesting now.
So let's play the first sus chord. _ _ _ _ _ _
[A] Now before we switch to the thumb version of that chord, we're going to add this note.
_ _ _ It's going to just jump in there real subtly.
[Bb] Check this out. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[Gm] _ _ _ _ Did you even hear that?
It goes by really fast.
[N] All I'm doing is I'm going from the second fret to the first fret of the third string.
Remember, because the capo is here, this is now the first fret.
This is the [Bb] second fret.
I know it's kind of confusing, but capos make things that way.
So all I really do is at the very end of the first chord, _ I [Gm] lift up the ring finger and
I let the index finger play that first fret.
Then I bring my thumb over the top and I hit this note all by itself _ while I reform the chord. _ _ _ _
We're going to talk more about that in a second. _ _ _
At the end of the second chord, we're going to do the same move at the very end.
We're going to add that first fret. _ _ _ _ _
[F] _ There it is again.
Now this is kind of fun.
_ _ The next string, [C] second fret, _ [G] and the next string after that, fourth fret.
_ _ _ _ [D] _
_ Some call that a sus2 chord.
Some people call it a 5 chord with an added 9.
_ _ Whatever you prefer.
_ _ _ _ _ [Eb] _
_ _ _ We'll end it the same.
So we're good to go.
So with those little transitional notes plus that brand new chord, we're now at level [Bb] 5. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Gm] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [F] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[Eb] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Bb] _ _ _ _ _ So what is level 6?
If you watch on YouTube, you can actually [F] see Wendy from The Revolution play this.
She demonstrates it on somebody else's channel.
And I was really studying it for [Ab] this video.
And I was trying to figure out exactly the chord she was doing because not a lot of people
teach Purple Rain correctly online I've noticed.
So [Bb] all that crazy stuff with the capo, we don't need the capo for the real version.
Listen to this. _ _ _
_ _ _ _ Isn't that kind of magical that when I did it right, your brain just knows it?
It just has a different character [C] to it.
[D] So what I'm doing here, it's a Bb sus2 over D chord.
Kind of confusing.
But we're playing an open D string.
_ _ [Bb] Then the third string, third fret is a Bb.
[F] Then we're barring across the first frets of the first two strings.
So C and F. _ _
Just [Bb] like Nirvana.
Put that together, _ _ you get that sweet chord.
Here's a little detail though.
Take your thumb and bring it over the top of the two fattest strings to mute them.
They should both be dead.
That way you can play and you can strum and not be so concerned about only hitting the
four strings that you're trying for.
So if you hit all six, _ _ still sounds great.
So after you play that chord, we're going to take that same thumb that was muting and
now we're going to actually fret the [B] sixth string, third fret.
While muting the fifth string like we did earlier for the other [Gm] level. _ _ _ _ _
[Bb] Another great sound.
So we're just going to go from the first chord to _ _ _ utilizing the thumb on the sixth string.
[Gm] _ _ _ _ _ Really fattens it up in a great way.
The next chord might give you nightmares for a little while.
So I'm going to give you two ways to do it.
On the video that Wendy [C] was demonstrating, she went like this.
She did the [F] sus chord like this.
[G] _ _
_ _ [A] So it's totally fine to do it that way.
If you listen to the album, you can hear a high A note. _ _
[F] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
So if you add that to what I just did, you get this sound. _ _ _
_ _ [C] _ And then at the very end, it doesn't get much easier.
So we're going to go up on the fifth string to the [Eb] sixth fret. _ _ _
And then we have to create the rest of this add nine chord.
This one's a little more difficult though, because now we have to actually bar across
with our index finger, _ _ _ which really opens up the top end of that sound.
_ _ _ _ [Bb] Put those four chords together and you get this. _ _ _ _ _
_ [Gm] Let's fret that thumb. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [F] Let's do the finger buster. _ _
Let's _ [C] _ [Bb] do the other finger buster way up here.
_ _ _ _ And then back home to the first chord.
_ _ _ _ OK, so that's level six.
I'm sure a lot of people are like, oh man, what is level seven going to be then?
So here's some good news.
You've already kind of done a little bit of level seven, because you did those connector notes.
One of those is going to come back.
We're going to do something kind of interesting though with the second one.
So let's start off with that chord that we did earlier here. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [Dm] _ There's that little transition again.
Add the thumb, but only hit the [G] thumb note first.
_ Then add the [Gm] rest.
_ _ She separates them.
She does that with the next two chords as well.
So we hit the thumb note first, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ and then she plays the top end of that chord like that.
Now, [C] instead of walking [E] down on the third string, we're just going to go like this.
We're going to lift up our thumb, hit the open E string before we go to the F sus
two chord or add nine, whatever [C] you choose to do.
_ _ _ _ So [E] it's kind of nice to hit the low E [F] _ into the F.
It's a nice feel [Gm] to go to that. _ _ _ _ _
_ [E] _ [F] _ I kind of exaggerated there, but you get the idea.
_ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _
You probably noticed I stopped afterwards.
I did like a little muted sound, and that's actually in the original recording.
So she goes like [F] this.
_ _ _ _ [C] _ _
_ [Eb] Isn't that great?
Now we finish up by going to the last chord, hit the root note first, _ wait a little bit,
play the rest of the notes like that, and then go like this.
_ It's really important to arpeggiate those first two notes.
And then do an [Bb] upstroke and then kill the notes.
So let's put those together.
So we start here. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Gm] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [F] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Eb] _ _ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [C] All right, everyone, hopefully at whatever level you're at, you can now play along to
the Purple Rain intro.
We're going to be talking about the solo in a different video.
I'm very excited about that.
I might bring in a friend who's actually played in Prince's band before, so that
should be cool.
But for now, work on that.
See what you could do.
And we'll catch you at the next video.
It was an honor to do this video.
As always, anytime I do [N] a Prince video. _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _