Love Changes Everything - Fingerstyle Version - Tutorial + Tab
And now for some thing completely different. This is my fingerstyle guitar version of the song Love Changes Everthing. The song featured in the West End and Broadway musical Aspects of Love by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It is quite a catchy, yet beautiful and powerful love song with touching and emotive lyrics. The music was written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and the lyrics by Don Black and Charles Hart. It was originally sung by Michael Ball in the musical, and although it has been covered many times by different artists, his version is still agruably the best, due in no small part to his breathtaking singing voice.
The song is a slight departure from what I usually do as it is isn't really a piece of blues music and this isn't a blues transcription of it. However, I got the song stuck in my head and decided to do a quick fingerstyle version of it, so I thought I would share it. I will still be doing blues music on my channel, but will occasionally do something different like this.
It can be quite a tricky little piece to play as it involves a lot of fast barring across all 6 strings quite far up the neck. It also involves a few wide stretches using the pinky on the fretting hand. The song has 3 verses which run from bars 3 - 20 in the music, so you can just keep repeating these bars to add another verse. In the original, there is a key change in verse 3 but I have not included this and you can easily just repeat in the same key if you want.
My version is played on a guitar tuned to Open D, is in the Key of D, and in 4/4 time.
Below are the lyrics, some tips to help you play this piece, and links to download the tab.
Hands and faces, earth and sky
Love, Love changes everything
How you live and how you die
Or a night seem like a lifetime
Yes, love, love changes everything
Now I tremble at your name
Nothing in the world will ever be the same
Days are longer, words mean more
Love, love changes everything
Pain is deeper than before
And that world will last forever
Yes, love, love changes everything
Brings you glory, brings you shame
Nothing in the world will ever be the same
Planning futures, shaping years
Love bursts in, and suddenly
All our wisdom disappears
All the rules we make are broken
Yes, love, love changes everyone
Live or perish in its flame
Love will never, never let you be the same
Love will never, never let you be the same
- Barring and Stretching - To play this you will have to be quite competent at barring across all 6 strings of the guitar. There is a lot of barring invloved and you will have to form them quickly and accurately to play this. You also have to play other notes whilst barring using the other fingers on your fretting hand, including some wide stretches using the pinky. This can be quite tricky whilst still holding down the barre. If you are struggling to form these barres and stretch to these notes, you can look at the music and try to find other fingerings to play these sections, although you may struggle. One thing I would recommend is perhaps using a guitar with slightly lower tension strings. Maybe try playing it with the strings lowered a few half steps or using lighter gauge strings to reduce string tension and make barring easier.
- Uneven Bass Notes - Although
this piece is in 4/4 time, I haven't employed a standard travis picking pattern. Instead when I was writing it, I incorporated the bass notes I thought were most suitable for each part of the music. This makes for a non-standard bass note picking pattern which can be tricky to learn, but arguably makes the music sound better. The best way to play this, is just try to memorise the whole piece of music and practise it until you get the bass notes played correctly. If you are struggling however, you could play the bass notes with a standard travis picking pattern, or even just keep playing the bass notes on the same string. Although this would still be in tune, I do not feel the music would sound as good and lack the fullness of sound, but it is an option.
- Tempo Changing -What tempo you play this music at is entirely up to you. I believe the original Michael Ball version is about 95bpm which is roughly the speed I play it at. However, I feel that, when playing it on guitar, that the music could be slowed down considerably and still sound good, and perhaps even give more scope for some changes to the phrasing. I would recommend trying to play this at a slower tempo, as it will not only be slightly easier to play, but may also allow for more emotive expression in the music which would certainly lend itself to this piece.
This is about all I need to say about this piece. It can be quite a tricky piece to play, but if you are competent barring all 6 strings and playing fingerstyle or classical guitar, it shouldn't be too problematic. If you are having problems, try looking at different fingerings when you need to barre or try looking at playing a more even and standardised bass note picking pattern in the music.
Thanks for Reading,
Neil
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