I know, it's an amazing song and it doesn't lose its authenticity. Percy Sledge - When A Man Loves A Woman.. For some reason, the radio plays it at exactly the right moment, you end up listening to it on YouTube and looking for a tutorial. I'll be happy to try and teach you how I play the song. As you see and hear, with fingerpicking you an combine the chords with the singing part, the melody. Great to impress the love of your life with and melt her heart, but heavy for the fingers.. Take your time for it, make sure you have the basics of guitar fingerpicking down and if you still come across some unclarities, let me know and I'll try to explain better.
The basic chord progression I use is great. It's not mine, unfortunatly, and there are hundreds of songs are played with the complete progression, or at least a part of it. From Annie Lennox' 'Why' untill...well, 'When a Man Loves a Woman"... Here it is:
The basic chord progression I use is great. It's not mine, unfortunatly, and there are hundreds of songs are played with the complete progression, or at least a part of it. From Annie Lennox' 'Why' untill...well, 'When a Man Loves a Woman"... Here it is:
C C/b Am Am/G F G C G e:--x--|--x--|--x--|--x--|--x--|--x--|--x--|--x--| B:--1--|--1--|--1--|--1--|--1--|--0--|--1--|--0--| G:--0--|--0--|--2--|--0--|--2--|--0--|--0--|--0--| D:--2--|--0--|--2--|--2--|--3--|--0--|--2--|--0--| A:--3--|--2--|--0--|--x--|--3--|--2--|--3--|--2--| E:--x--|--x--|--x--|--3--|--1--|--3--|--x--|--3--|
This is one of the few old vids where you can see my righthand. For the melody, I let my fingers 'roll' over the strings to kinda fill up the voids. Start with the ring, then the middle and then the indexfinger...and do it really fast. It's a cool technique, if you want to really get into it, try to find some tutorials on tremolo for the guitar, which is a classical technique to pick the string continuously, very fast. I recommend it..it gives your guitarplaying a little extra dimension. Who knows, maybe in a year you'll play Recuerdos de la Alhambra like a pro. Be sure to send me a link though.. Anyway, what I want to say is I won't tab it like that, because it will get way too crowded with numbers. I'll only put down the right high notes in combination with the right bassnotes. It's all up to you to make it sound fuller, once you've got the basics down. Ok sorry, on with the melody. Have a look:
C C/B e:-5--5--|-5--3----3--0-|-3--5----------| B:-------|--------------|---------0---0-| G:-------|-0------------|-----------0---| D:-------|-2------------|-0-------------| A:-------|-3------------|-2-------------| E:-------|--------------|---------------| When a Ma-an loves a wo-man
Yeah that's cool huh, when you can hear those opening notes.. If the fingerpicking proves a little difficult, try to simply strum the chords and fingerpositions. first train the left hand, then the right hand. And when you decide to start the fingerpicking, focus on just the A string with the thumb, and the e and B string with the index finger. As such:
e:-5-5-5--3--3--0--3--5--| A:-----3-----------2-----|
Keep doing that for the other parts as well.. When that goes well, fill it up by simply using more fingers, brush some strings with the thumb, anything to create a fuller sound. When you have the basic chords and fingerpicking down, you'll feel so much more comfortable to experiment. Just accept that playing the tabs, won't make it sound like the video yet.. Ok, on with the show, second part:
Am Am/G F e:--------0---------|-----------------|----0----------| B:-1--1-----3-1-0---|-3--1--3---------|------3-1-0----| G:-2--2-----------0-|---------0-0---0-|-2----------0--| D:-2----------------|-------------2---|-3-------------| A:-0----------------|-----------------|-3-------------| E:------------------|-3---------------|-1-------------|
