Chords for How to play 'Here Comes the Sun' EASY like Richie Havens

_ _ _ _ _ Hello Patreon!
So today I just want to do a quick video on how to actually play Here Comes the Sun like
I did a few days ago.
So the way I play it is a little bit different.
I play it like Richie Havens.
So Richie Havens _ was a self-taught musician.
He had some friends in a band and they needed a guitarist.
Their guitarist was out of town for a few days or whatever.
And so they said, here Richie, take this guitar home and figure it out and come back next
week and play our songs.
Play with us.
So he did.
And that's pretty awesome because it took me a lot longer to figure out how to play guitar.
Essentially what Richie Havens did was he figured out that if he tuned the guitar right,
he could play anything and it wasn't very hard.
So that's what we're going to do today.
So for this song, you're going to tune the guitar to open D.
So that way whenever you
play anything, which is strumming the guitar, it'll play a D chord.
Right now it's in [D#] standard tuning, which [F#] is E, A, D, G, B, E. _
And that's sort of the [D#] typical
tuning, but we're going to change it a little bit.
So you're going to drop your sixth string, the [E] lowest string, down [D#] to D.
_ [D] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [A] You're going to leave your fifth string as an A. _ _
_ _ _ _ [D] Then you're going to leave your fourth string a D.
_ _ [G] _ Then you're going to take your third string down to an F sharp.
_ _ [F#] _
_ _ [B] Then you're going to take the B to an A. _
_ [A] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [F#] There we go.
And you're going to take the _ high string, your first string, down to a D as well. _
[D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ There we go.
So then when you strum the whole guitar, you get this lovely sound. _ _
And you're playing a major chord.
So, _ [F] first job done.
Now, Richie Havens played Woodstock.
He played the first Woodstock, and he opened the concert.
He was like the first big event.
And this was one of the songs he played, Here Comes the Sun, by the Beatles, who famously
were not at Woodstock.
And that's a whole other story.
But, to play Here Comes the Sun like Richie Havens, in open D, with just your thumb, _ you're
going to do this.
So basically, the way I do it, it's a little bit different from the way he popularized
it, [D] but you can make it your own.
The whole song is in D.
[C] It's around that major chord.
So, the first little trick you have is, if you put your thumb over your sixth, fifth,
and fourth strings, and the third if you want to, you'll get a really nice balance between
_ across the chord, [A] because you're essentially playing the same three notes.
[N] _ Plus an F sharp for an intro thumb.
So, if you go to the twelfth fret, that's an octave.
So you're playing a D, but a little bit higher up.
So, a lot of the time, what I do, and what Richie Havens does, is _ _ he puts his thumb down
and lifts it up as he's strumming.
So you get this [D] quick jumping between the high octave and the low octave.
So it sounds like, you can just strum it open, _ _ or [G] you can add in your thumb and do a little
bit of [D] this. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ And then if you wanted to do a little flourish at the end, you can hit the higher strings
to go even higher.
So, anyway, that's the gist.
Now, the actual chord progression for the song is you're going from that [G] twelfth fret,
and then you're going to bump down to the fifth, [D] and then the seventh.
So that sounds like_
_ [G] _ _
[A] _ _ _ [F] And that's the main _ part of [D] the song.
And then, occasionally, you'll jump down to the second fret, [E]
to the [F#] fourth, [G] to the fifth,
to [A] the seventh. _
There [G] we go.
[D] And then back up to the twelfth. _ _
_ [F#] So for your _ [D] verses_
Little darling, _ it's been a long five, cold [A] lonely winter, seven, _ back to twelve. _ _ _ _
[G] _ _ [A] _ _ [D] _ Here comes the sun, doo doo doo [G] doo, here [A] comes the sun, and I say, two, [F#] it's all four,
[D] right, it's all five, right, [A] it's all right.
_ _ _ [D] _ _ _
[G#] And then the one other big change is at the very end of the song, Richie Havens throws
in another Beatles song into the end of this song, and you can look into that, but he goes
from the tenth [D] fret, and in the [Bm] end, down to the ninth.
_ _ [A#] You can [G] do the eighth, it's a little iffy, depending on, I don't know, your ear, but
generally I'll do [B] ten, nine, seven, [G] five, [Dm] four, [B] maybe three, [D] two, _ and [N] then you end on
the high note.
But mainly, the last little transition at the very end of the song, with the extra Beatles
song, which you can look into, is [C] ten, [A] nine, seven.
_ [F#] _ _ So not too bad.
And you can do this for pretty much any song using Richie Havens' style.
There's some other chord shapes that he uses.
He'll put _ his thumb over the three lowest strings, and then he'll use his finger to
cover the highest two strings on the two frets above that, so he'll do his pointer finger
on strings one and two of the fifth fret, and then his thumb across the lowest [E] three
strings, and he'll get these sort of more dynamic chords that way.
You can look up, there are lists of all of Richie Havens' different music theory and chords.
His website is actually a really great resource, depending on your internet browser, it's a
little old website, but it's really cool because he basically invented this whole other way
of playing, best I can tell anyway, it was him, and it's really fun, and anybody can
play it, because it's [D] super easy, because it's an open [G#m] tuning.
And you can use other tunings, but D is really rich and fun.
So, anyway, I hope that helps, let me know what you think, and thank you for supporting my music.
Okay, bye.
[N] _