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Wish You Were Here
by Pink Floyd • Lesson #65 • May 6, 2017
Editor’s Notes
In this lesson, I’ll show you how to play the classic Pink Floyd song Wish You Were Here. I’ll show you how to play the intro (with tabs), explain the chords needed, talk about strumming pattern, and more. This is just a fabulous song, great for beginners (I keep this version as easy as possible), but also quite fun for seasoned musicians.
Free Video Lesson
Timestamps:
- 0:00 Playthrough
- 2:20 Lesson overview
- 3:34 Intro Riff, part 1
- 5:40 Intro Riff, part 2
- 7:05 Verse strumming, simple
- 7:50 Verse strumming, advanced
Print-Friendly Song Sheet 2 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.
On the fence? Here's a guide I made showing the purchase & print process, including answers to common questions about my song sheets.
Buy at Musicnotes.comIntro riff
The more musically astute among you will notice some corners I may have cut in some of the very minor details with the intro riff’s tab. I also am using standard chord shapes for the verse/chorus chords (where I believe Pink Floyd likely plays inversions of these chords, such as C/G and D/F#).
See my song sheet for the intro tab.
Chords needed
For the intro:
E –––––3–––––3–––––3–––––
B –––––3–––––3–––––3–––––
G –––––0–––––0–––––0–––––
D –––––0–––––2–––––2–––––
A –––––2–––––––––––0–––––
E –––––3–––––––––––––––––
G Em7 A7sus4
For the verse:
E –––––3––––0––––2––––0–––––
B –––––3––––1––––3––––1–––––
G –––––0––––0––––2––––2–––––
D –––––0––––2––––0––––2–––––
A –––––2––––3–––––––––0–––––
E –––––3––––––––––––––––––––
G C D Am
Strumming pattern
If you’re just getting started with things, I recommend the following simple strum. Do down strums on all 4 counts, but try to accent (give extra oomph) to the “1” and “3” counts. In repetition, this would read as “DOWN down DOWN down DOWN down DOWN down…”
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +
D d D d
From there, you can take things to the next level by doing this “down… down, down up” pattern over and over. See my video lesson for reference! In repetition, this reads as “DOWN… down, down up DOWN… down, down up DOWN… down, down up…”
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +
D d d u
Finally, there’s an advanced strumming pattern you can do (which I also show in the video lesson). This pattern takes up two full measures. This would be spoken as “DOWN… down, down up, up down, down up down up DOWN… down, down up, up down, down up down up.”
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +
D d d u u d d u d u
Hope this helps!
This is a great song, good luck with it, and I hope this helped you.
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Hey there! My name is David Potsiadlo, and I'm the creator of the 400+ weekly lessons here at Song Notes, going back to 2013. Here’s my guitar story »
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