Description
Today we'll be learning the soulful pop classic, "You Send Me" originally made famous by the legendary Sam Cooke. A dreamy love song with a simple chord progression, a swinging beat & catchy lyrics. This song uses basic guitar chords, is easy strum along with, and fun to sing.
As with many great pop songs, the main musical device here is repetition. The good news is that once you've learned the basic progression you know most of the song. The bad news is that it can be challenging to track your location in the chart with so much "sameness" throughout. To help us be in the right place at the right time, we'll study the form of the song, which is made up of eight 8 bars.
Each section has a distinctive ending, or harmonic cadence that helps to both distinguish one part of the song from another, but also plays a huge role in directing harmonic traffic throughout the song. Take the opportunity to train your ear so that you are able to distinguish a full cadence from a half cadence and a plagal cadence. I guarantee you've heard these relationships expressed many times in music you listen to every day. Use this song to become a better player by being a more informed listener!
The backing tracks for "You Send Me" are fairly straight forward: drums, bass, a bit of electric guitars and for sugar, some dreamy "oops" in the background. Our guitar part is the glue that holds it all together so the goal is to groove with the rest of the band, and to keep track of where we are in the chart!
The tune is played in G major at approximately 98 BPM (dotted quarter gets one beat) and in 12/8 time signature.
Lesson Info
