Adele - Someone Like You - Guitar Cover

21

2011 4:45

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About Someone Like You

The guitar part in "Someone Like You" is built almost entirely on a fingerpicked arpeggiated pattern in A major, rolling steadily through the chords at 67 BPM. That unhurried tempo might suggest an easy ride, but keeping the pattern even and controlled across the whole song is a real test of right-hand consistency. The pattern outlines each chord change cleanly, so any hesitation in your fretting hand is immediately exposed. Standard E tuning means nothing unusual to set up, but you do want a clean, warm tone with no unnecessary effects. Work through the verse and chorus chord shapes first, then focus on locking the picking pattern in before combining the two. If the hand coordination feels awkward at first, use the Practice Toolbar to loop a single bar slowed down until the motion becomes automatic. Adele wrote this as a piano-led ballad, and the guitar arrangement captures that same sparse, emotional quality, making dynamics and touch far more important than speed or complexity. This sits well within the Pop world but rewards the kind of careful, attentive playing usually associated with fingerstyle acoustic work.

• The entire song is built on a repeating fingerpicked arpeggio pattern in A major, making right-hand evenness the central technical challenge.
• At 67 BPM the tempo is slow, but sustaining a clean, consistent fingerpicking pattern at low speed demands deliberate control and relaxed hand position.
• Practise the chord transitions and the arpeggio pattern separately before combining them, using the Practice Toolbar to loop difficult changes slowed down.