How to Play "Sunny" The Most Played Song of All Time!

I don't know about you guys, but if I have to pick a song that puts together a beautiful chord progression, meaningful lyrics, an interesting arrangement, excellent singing and undisputed popularity, Sunny by Bobby Hebb would be my number one choice.

It was written in 1963 and from 1965 to now we can find hundreds of musicians and singers playing and covering the song in many different styles.

The song features an interesting R&B chord progression in the key of E minor.

If we have to play the most basic chords we will have E minor, G major, C major,

F sharp minor and B7.

a chord progression that will change key five times throughout the song.

The structure is very simple.

We only have 16 measures that are repeated over and over again in different keys.

So how do we even get started with this song?

First things first, we can play the bass line, the popular bass line that opens the song like this.

So we are only playing the bass note of each chord.

This is from bar one to bar four.

We have the E minor, we're gonna play the low E string open.

For the G we'll play the fret three.

For the C we'll play the fret three on the A string.

and for the F sharp minor and B7 we're only gonna have to play the chord twice.

So F sharp on fret 2 on the 6th string and for the B we have the A string fret 2.

So it's a nice intro but Bobby Hab is already singing on this bass line.

For the second verse, we can already add chords to this bass line like this.

Bear in mind that we are keeping things very simple.

I'm just playing open chords.

I'll show you how to add more color to these chords in a moment.

So when we add the chords, we're gonna strum it lightly after the first bass note and after the third bass note.

So we have bass, strum, bass, bass, strum, bass.

Same thing for the other chords.

Be careful with the F sharp minor and B7, we have bass, strum, bass, bass, strum, bass.

So far we already covered the first eight bars.

We started with the bass line and then we added the chords.

This second section from bar 9 to 16 is played with more or less the same chords.

we are just kind of changing the structure slightly.

We have the E minor chord for one bar, G major for one bar, C major for one bar, and be careful here, an F major for one bar, F sharp minor for one bar, B7 for one bar, and we finish with the E minor chord for two bars.

And of course, we can combine the bass line with the chords

and G and C and F F sharp minor B7 I know that you noticed this lovely color on the E minor chord

This is called line cliché, which is a chromatic line played within the chord.

In this case, we are playing the line cliché on the A string, fret number two, fret number three, fret number four, and fret number three again.

Of course, we have to add the E minor chord.

So we have two, two, zero, and zero.

And I'm using the pima.

So I have thumb, index, middle, ring, thumb, index, middle, ring, and thumb, index, middle, ring, and thumb, index, middle, and ring.

This is the whole structure played with the bass line and basic chords.

The chords are still missing some color.

So how do we do that?

Well, we're gonna have to change the chord family.

We need minor seven, dominant seven, and major seven chords.

So this is how we're gonna do it.

For the E minor, we're gonna play an E minor seven chord.

For the G, we're gonna play a G seven chord.

And for the C, a C major seven chord.

F sharp minor seven, and B seven.

we're gonna do the same thing for the other chords.

Now, the awesome thing is that we can add the bassline as well as the strumming with these new chords, like this.

Again.

This second section will have slightly different chords.

We still have the E minor seven and the G seven, C major seven.

Before the F, we're gonna play an F seven chord.

We can also add the first string, fret number three if you want.

Beautiful sounding chord.

Then F sharp minor seven and B seven.

So we have

Thank you.

i know that we are playing a lot of bar chords but trust me you are going to need them since we are playing the same 16 bars in five different keys the same chord progression played in five different keys we're gonna start with the e minor and then we're gonna have the f f minor f sharp minor g minor g sharp minor and we'll finish with the a minor chord

so you can play the same chord shapes without having to learn new chord shapes so we start with the E minor now on bar 16 we're gonna play the dominant chord of the new key in this case it's the C7 and we change key and we play the F minor

2x7

Of course, you don't have to learn all the five different keys if you don't have to sing the song.

I think it's a great exercise to play the same chord progression in different keys.

But at the same time, you also want to keep things simple.

And if you want, you can just practice the chord progression in the key of E minor.

It's pretty interesting to have the bass line and then add some chords and some strumming to even playing the simple chord progression.

So it's up to you.

Enjoy this lesson.

Enjoy this song.

Let me know if you like the tutorial and I'll see you next time.