This is the full fingerstyle guitar lesson for While Why Guitar Gently Weeps by The Beatles.
While My Guitar Gently Weeps was written by George Harrison in 1968 and appears on The Beatles iconic album 'White Album'.
Harrison invited fellow guitarist Eric Clapton along to the session during the recording of While My Guitar Gently Weeps, and the overdubbed guitar solos you hear on the track were all played by him.
We're going to learn a full fingerstyle arrangement of While My Guitar Gently Weeps in this lesson. This means that for the entire piece we're going to be playing the chords, melody and the bass notes all at the same time. You may find it a little tricky at times as there's so much going on. Hopefully you'll get a lot out of this lesson.
Song Details:
- Key - A minor
- Tempo - about 110 bpm
- Tuning - standard
- Difficulty - intermediate - advanced
While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Performance)
As you learn to play this fingerstyle arrangement of While My guitar Gently Weeps, be sure to frequently return to the performance as a good reference point and guide.
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The Intro Lesson for While My Guitar Gently Weeps
For the intro I've added the piano line you can hear on the song over the descending bass notes. I recommend starting by isolating the two individual parts (bass/piano line), practising them both separately and then bringing them together.
If you want the lyrics of While My Guitar Gently Weeps and just the chords in their most basic form, then you can find them here.
How to Play the Verse
Throughout the verse we're playing the descending bass line again, with the melody of the lyrics. At the same time we're also adding in some arpeggiated notes from within each chord. Remember that when doing a fingerstyle arrangement of any song you want to think of the guitar as a band, not just one single instrument.
Want to learn more songs by The Beatles?
How to Play the Chorus of While My Guitar Gently Weeps
The interesting part about the chorus and what gives it the strong lift is the key change. Here it goes from the key of A minor to its parallel key of A major, this is pretty typical of The Beatles and a mark of their truly outstanding songwriting skills.
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How to Play the Instrumental Section of While My Guitar Gently Weeps
There's just the instrumental section to learn now. I put my own little spin on this part so feel free to add your own if you want to.
Want to learn more fingerstyle arrangements of famous songs?: Can't Help Falling In Love (Elvis Presley), Take Me Home, Country Roads (John Denver), Don't Look Back In Anger (Oasis), Ticket to Ride (The Beatles), Have You Ever Seen The Rain (Creedence Clearwater Revival).
Alternatively you can browse the whole song catalogue: Song Lesson Library
Let me know what you thought of the lesson in the comments section below. Say what you found hard/easy, what level you're at and what your fingerpicking goals are.
Where is the TAB?
Tab is up now. No idea why it didn’t upload with the rest of the lesson.
[…] While My Guitar Gently Weeps by The Beatles (Fingerstyle Guitar Lesson) […]
when you are doing the play trough, i noticed the second time youbplay through the chorus you play the something different for the last two or 3 chords. are you just playing the G,C,E chords for the verse the rest of the song and only play the G,D,E that first time through the verse?
Sorry Sam you’ve lost me a little here. The chords I play are as they’re written in the tabs.
I’m talking about the second time you play through the verse you play through two chords to lead you into the chorus. The tabs have a C chord and an E chord and the tab doesnt sound right but when you play it sounds right.
I’m talking about the second time you play through the verse you play through two chords to lead you into the chorus. The tabs have a C chord and an E chord and the tab doesnt sound right but when you play it sounds right.
That part is very open to interpretation. So long as you arpeggiate the two chords it doesn’t matter too much what you play, so long as it sounds good. Sometimes I’ll pick my through those chords and sometimes I might strum them. Play around with it and find what works for you, don’t be afraid to change it.
cool thanks for the quick response I was also wondering what should be played before the instrumental? I’ve tried the chorus and verse but it doesnt sound very fluent transitioning into the instrumental.
It’s the verse that leads into the instrumental.
Thank for sharing those kind of songs ! Now i can’t stop playing it !
Thank you !
See you !
Great work and thanks for sharing your expertise. You are doing a great service to all of us who long to play our favorites.
Where were you when I was 12 years old with my first $15.00 acoustic trying to play along with the radio? LOL.
Thanks Gary, I’m pleased I’m helping you out.
Great Job! “A Little Help From A Friend” 🙂
This is perfect and I cant believe its free
I liked your arrangement of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” so went out to Musicnotes.com, where I just purchased your arrangement/tab of “Here Comes the Sun, But there was no tab there for “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. I noticed in one of the comments above you say the tab is posted.
Is the tab available to purchase? If so please let me know the web site where I can do so.
Thanks.
Hi Paul, glad you like the arrangement. I haven’t sent While My guitar Gently Weeps off for publication yet. I’ll be transcribing it over the coming weeks so it should be available within a month or two.
Thanks, looking forward to seeing it. There are a few tabs of While My guitar Gently Weeps out on Musicnotes & elsewhere. They’re all pretty good but deviate from the actual song here & there – some sort of leaving out the ending or some other deviation I don’t care for. Yours doesn’t so good luck on finishing it. I would think people will be interested in it.
Thanks a lot Paul, full tab will be available shortly.
Is there perhaps also a full tablature?
Yes, it’s been sent off for publication. Will be available soon.
Hi Chris…….fantastic sounding arrangement ! I am trying to figure out the tabs structure.
This what I think is right……..play intro, then verse thru bar 24……then play chorus twice…….then play verse bar 33 to bar 40……then play coda…..then play bar 69 to outro……and play outro till bar 89
But if that is the case, why is there a repeat sign at bar 9 ?
Thanks
Hey, glad you like the arrangement. Sounds like you’re not quite understanding the codas, be sure to read up on them or watch a Youtube video that explains them, they can be pretty confusing.
Play all the way through to bar 64 (of course following all repeat signs), then go back to bar 25, play through to bar 40, jump to bar 65 and play through to them end.
Hope this helps.