Perfect Guitar Lesson

Ed Sheeran has had more than his fair share of hits over the last handful of years. These incredibly popular tracks of his have inspired many to pick up the guitar and play - which is an incredible thing, no matter what your preference in music is! A big reason for this is that many of his tracks are written with approachable chords and rhythm. 'Perfect' is a perfect - ha - example of this, so get your guitar and let's learn it section by section!

Thomas has created a fantastic video lesson which breaks down each section in detail. Be sure to check it out, and keep referring back to it as you follow through this lesson write-up, as it will be incredibly helpful to understand the rhythm!

12/8 Time Signature

Before we jump right into the harmony, let's make sure we're happy with the time signature of the track - 12/8. Let's use the most common time signature - 4/4 - as an example to help us understand. The first '4' is an indication of how many beats we play within one bar. The second '4' lets us know what the value of the note is - in this case, it would be a quarter note. This means that we're playing four quarter notes in each bar. If this is the first time you're hearing of this, put on a metronome and count in groups of four.

Therefore, 12/8 would have twelve eighth notes per bar. So, would you believe me if I said 12/8 is practically the same time signature as 4/4? This is all because of the way in which we count 12/8 - in 4 groups of 3 eighth notes. So, if we have a bar of 4/4 and play a triplet on each beat, we'd essentially be turning it into 12/8. The best way to count 12/8 is this: "1-and-a, 2-and-a, 3-and-a, 4-and-a". I'll provide a diagram below to explain this in a bit more of a visual manner!

Verse

Let's get to the fun stuff - the chords! Please note that we need to place our capo on the 1st fret to play in the right key. The verse is made of these four chords in this order - G, Em, C and D. If you watched the video carefully, you'll have noticed that Thomas is playing them slightly differently to their normal positions - he's keeping his third finger on the 3rd fret of the B-string at all times. This slightly changes the flavour and names of the chords. Check them out below:

Don't worry too much if you're confused about what the '7' and '9' mean in the chords above. Let me try and explain them in one sentence: they are extensions from the base chord, with the numbers referring to the 7th and 9th degrees of the scale. For the sake of ease of legibility, we're just going to refer to the shapes as the 'base' chords. So, even though we're technically playing an Em7 and Cadd9, we'll continue to refer to them as Em and C.

Another small note is that Thomas is not playing the full shapes of the chords, instead, he's only playing the notes that are needed in the picking pattern. This is absolutely something you can replicate, but it's not an issue either if you prefer playing the full chord shapes! The notes highlighted in pink are all notes that you need to play, and the ones in black are the ones you can omit… for now!

As for the rhythm - we want to play one chord per bar. Remember, we're in 12/8, so we're going to be playing 12 lots of each chord!

We're going to ditch the pick for now, and use our thumb, index and middle finger to pluck the strings in a 'claw-like' motion instead. Your index and middle fingers are going to stay on the G and B strings respectively, while your thumb is going to swap between the E, A and D string. Your thumb always wanted to follow the lowest note of each chord, so, it'll be on the E string for G and Em, the A string for C, and the D string for D major.

The beginning of each bar is highlighted by the thumb plucking the root note of the chord. This is the part of the bar where the thumb is being used. The G and B strings are played on all 12 beats of the bar, including the first beat with the thumb. Not only does this make the piece sound lovely and delicate, but it helps us keep track of the timing!

As seen in the image outlining the chord progression earlier in the lesson, we simply repeat the progression twice. However, there is one slight difference upon the second repeat. For the final bar of D major, we want to pluck just six times, and strum through the chord once on the seventh beat. This creates a short pause in the music to take us to the pre-chorus. Remember to keep counting through the pause to make sure you come back in on the right beat for the next section!

Pre-chorus

The pre-chorus is the same duration as the verse and uses the same chords as the verse, with a small tweak in the harmonic rhythm and a subtle embellishment.

As we can see in the first part of the progression, we have both a G and D in the same bar. This is what Thomas is referring to as a 'split-bar', as we're playing each chord for one half of the bar. To do this successfully, simply count six beats for the G, and transition to the D for another six.

To play the embellishment over the D chord in the second repeat, we need to add our pinky to the 3rd fret of the high E string. This creates what's known as a Dsus4 chord, which is a very commonly used embellishment. Essentially, a sus4 chord is created by suspending, or raising the 3rd degree to the 4th degree - in this case, F# to G.

This is the first point in the track where we want to introduce a different rhythm in the right hand. We want to use a combination of plucking and strumming over the D chord to help us transition into the chorus. Check out the strumming pattern below to see exactly what Thomas is playing!

Chorus

And just like that, we're onto the last chord focused section before we tackle the solo! And what's even better is that the chorus uses the same four chords from the previous sections! However, there are two challenges here… The first challenge is that every bar is a split-bar, meaning that we're going to have to transition between chords faster. The second is that there's a specific finger-picked pattern to finish the chorus off.

We get a slight change of the chord pattern for the chorus - Em, C, G D. Remember to keep your third finger on the 3rd fret of the B string for all of these chords! As we're playing two chords per bar, we want to change chord every six beats instead of every twelve. This also means that we need to pluck the bass note of the chord with our thumb every time we change chord.

After the fourth repeat of the chord progression, we need to add the finger-picked extension to finish the section off. Before we get into the progression, we need to look at one final chord shape - D/F#. This looks like a complicated jazz chord on paper, but it's actually just an instruction to play D major with an F# (the third of the chord) on the bass. Thomas highlights that you can catch the 2nd fret on the E string with either your thumb or index finger - it's just a matter of preference!

I strongly recommend referring back to the video to see exactly what strings need to be played over each chord, as it changes slightly throughout. The key thing to remember is that your thumb is in charge of plucking the low E, A and D strings, while your index and middle finger are going to be plucking the G and B strings respectively.

Adding dynamics

Just a quick note before we move onto the solo - Thomas made an excellent point about changing the dynamics throughout the track to make it more interesting to listen to and play. Whether you're playing along to the track, or just on your own, swap the plucking for strumming! This will make it sound fuller, and create contrast between the sections. Make sure to play the full chord shapes when swapping to strumming - some of the chords might not sound perfect (I'm sorry, I had to…) if you don't!

Solo

The solo feels quite different to the rest of the track, as we're going to want to our pick, and there are a handful of lead guitar techniques involved!

As Thomas mentions in the video, it would be silly to take the capo off just for this section. So, we're going to leave it on, but refer to the frets as if there isn't a capo on. Just to be clear - if we refer to the 6th fret, we're indeed talking about the 6th fret on the board, not the 6th fret plus the capo position.

With that said, the solo sits comfortably within the Ab major scale (think G major + 1 semitone), and is played on just two strings. I've attached the scale boxes below with the highlighted notes being the ones we're going to target for this specific solo.

I want to give a quick tidbit of advice on each of the lead techniques involved in the solo before we wrap up and you get practicing!

Hammer-ons: It can be tempting to hammer-on as quick as possible, as it feels as if we need to play the hammered note while the previous plucked note is still ringing at its loudest. This isn't actually the case, as the volume and quality of the hammer-on is in the strength of your finger. So, be sure to prioritise timing, and make sure you're leaving the right amount of time between each note.

Slides: Slides can feel like a bit of a lucky-dip as to where you'll end up on the fretboard. But, I have a hack that will give you much more confident! Always be sure to look at the fret that you're targeting, and don't watch your finger as it slides. This will pretty much guarantee that you'll stop at the right place!

Embellishment: Thomas highlights a "really quick slide" - and you might've noticed that the note we slide up to isn't actually in scale shape. This 'outside' note is used as a passing note, and many lead players use this to inject some flavour. In terms of the technique, I would imagine this mini-slide as more of a 'twitch' up to the next fret rather than a slide. This helps to keep it quick and keep the right rhythm.