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About This Lesson
In today’s lesson I’ll do a melody deep-dive for Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, showing you a way to play the melody notes and chords at the same time. This makes for an incredibly satisfying way to play any of your favorite songs, as it allows you to capture the recognizable melody line in a way that sounds bigger & more full thanks to the strummed chords. I’ll be in the Key of C, which works quite well in open position. Let’s get into it!
- 0:00 Lesson Overview
- 2:09 Line 1 of 5
- 5:35 Line 2 of 5
- 8:34 Line 3 of 5
- 9:58 Line 4 of 5
- 11:04 Line 5 of 5
- 12:28 Full Playthrough
Instructional PDF 3 pages
Lesson Discussion
Bonus Videos
The following videos are available to members of Song Notes Premium. If you’re not a member, learn more about the many perks of Premium membership here on my Song Notes website. To those of you who are members — thanks for your support! It makes these lessons possible.
Slow Playthrough
Here’s a slow, zoomed-in playthrough (with tabs on screen) with no talking, no singing, and no jam track in the background. I zoomed in extra close on both hands so you can carefully see what I’m playing.
Play-Along Practice Track
Play along with a looped practice track, which cycles through the 26 measure chord progression for ~5 minutes. This includes bass, drums, and organ — created by me in GarageBand. Chord changes are shown on screen. You can use this to practice the melody, chords, strumming, or anything else!
Want to Strum and Sing Hallelujah?
A link to my original tutorial teaching this song can be found below. It includes a link to my licensed song sheet (available for purchase), which includes all of Leonard Cohen’s lyrics.
Related Lessons
From a technique standpoint, here’s a few lessons that’ll help out. I mention all of these during my main video tutorial above:
Intersted in additional melody deep-dives? Here’s a few others I’ve made, which are quite similar:
Browse Related Lessons
Click any tag below to view other lessons I've made in that category:
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