Learn How To Play "I Want To Hold Your Hand" by The Beatles On Guitar!

In this easy lesson, we'll learn how to play I Want To Hold Your Hand by The Beatles on the acoustic guitar. This is an excellent song for beginners and is easy to sing along to!

You only need open strings and simple strumming to play this tune to play it. We’ll also explore ways to spice it up and make it sound like the original record. We’re not diving into that intro, but feel free to explore that on your own. :)

💡Play Along to this Beatles song with backing tracks using my app! It's a fun and effective way to accelerate your guitar learning. :)

Chord Progressions & Easy Strumming

Let’s keep it simple and start by playing four downstrums to the bar. For the first verse, you’ll be playing G, D, Em B7. You'll find this typical chord sequence in loads of other popular songs! When you’re going from the Em to the B7 chord, keep your second finger down like an anchor - I'll make that chord transition much easier!

🚨 If you struggle with the chord changes, check out the One Minute Changes exercise.

Once you get to the chorus, you're playing two strums for each chord between C, D, and Em and finishing with a full G bar. If you're confident playing the whole song, it might be time to spice things up! This is when you’ll want to keep the listener in mind and use dynamics to keep things interesting.

Let’s Make It Fancy!

Using the old faithful to level up your strumming pattern will sound great for the verses. If you’re going to use it, change to all downstrums when you get to the chorus.

Arpeggiating the chords will give a nice contrast between the verse and the chorus. This technique involves picking out the individual chords and is an intermediate guitar skill. If you're not there yet, it might be something you’ll want to revisit later on!

To make it more Rock N Roll, use the 12-bar blues and barre chords . It'll mimic a closer sound to the original recording rhythm, but once again, that's a more advanced technique! Nothing wrong with keeping it simple for now. :)

Want chords, tabs, and lyrics to follow along with my song tutorials? Check out JustinGuitar Tabs!