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Can't Help Falling in Love
by Elvis Presley • Lesson #349 • Jan 30, 2021
Video lesson
Print-Friendly Song Sheet 3 pages
Follow along with my print-friendly guide for this song! It’s available for purchase at Musicnotes.com, the web’s leading provider of licensed sheet music.
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Buy at Musicnotes.comEditor’s notes
Hey friends! Here’s a guitar lesson teaching you how to play the Elvis classic “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” from his 1961 album (and film) Blue Hawaii. This lesson is focused around a beginner-friendly, strummed version of the song – aimed to make things as approachable as possible. I’ll be using no capo in my video lesson, just to ensure those of you without capos can play along – but note you’ll need to add a capo on 2nd fret (and use the chords I show) to play along with Elvis’ album version. I’ll also explain simple ways to play some of the more tricky chords (F and B7), and likewise show you a handful of strumming patterns – some of which are great if strumming gives you trouble. Thanks to all of you who requested this classic song… I hope you enjoy!
Video timestamps:
- 0:00 Preview & lesson summary
- 2:17 Chord shapes needed
- 4:35 Chord progressions
- 8:03 Strumming patterns
- 14:24 Full playthrough
Capo 2nd fret
To play along with the Elvis version, add a capo on the 2nd fret and use the chords I show here. Without a capo, you’ll need to play in the key of D to play along with Elvis. You can still use the chords I show with no capo, but note you’ll be out of tune with the Elvis version.
Chord shapes
Here’s the chord shapes needed. Note, if the F and/or B7 chords are giving you trouble – you don’t need to play any of the notes that are in parentheses. For example, the simplest way to play F chord is by only pushing down on the 4th, 3rd, and 2nd strings as shown below. Likewise, for the B7, you can only worry about playing the middle four strings.
e –––0–––0––––0––––3–––(1)––(2)–––0––––1–––
B –––1–––0––––1––––0––––1––––0––––2––––3–––
G –––0–––0––––2––––0––––2––––2––––0––––2–––
D –––2–––2––––2––––0––––3––––1––––2––––0–––
A –––3–––2––––0––––2–––(3)–––2––––0––––––––
E –––––––0–––––––––3–––(1)–––––––––––––––––
C Em Am G F B7 A7 Dm
Chord progressions
Here’s the measure-by-measure progressions used for the entire song, which has a verse and bridge section. The diagram below is broken into measures, each of which has 6 full beats.
Verse:
"Wise men say..."
| C | Em | Am | Am |
| F | C | G | G |
"But I can't help..."
| F | G | Am | F |
| C | G | C | C |
Bridge:
"Like a river flows..."
| Em | B7 | Em | B7 |
| Em | B7 |
"Some things are meant to be..."
| Em | A7 | Dm | G |
Strumming and rhythm
This song has 6 counts per measure. If you set your metronome to 100 bpm, this means one “click” per every 3 counts. In other words, the “1” and “4” counts would happen on the metronome beats. Visualized, this looks like this:
[ See PDF for diagram ]
To strum the song, the most beginner-friendly way to start is doing a down-strum only on the “1” count of each measure.
[ See PDF for diagram ]
From there, you can dial it up a bit by adding another down-strum on the “4” count. That is, do a down-strum on the “1” and “4” counts:
[ See PDF for diagram ]
To continue dialing it up, you can add even more down-strums… but make these a bit lighter, so that the “1” and “4” remain the strongest strums.
[ See PDF for diagram ]
Finally, you can add some up-strums if you wish – but again, keep these light! It’s okay if you’re only brushing the thinnest few strings when you up-strum.
[ See PDF for diagram ]
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