Bruno Mars - When I Was Your Man - Guitar Lesson

Unorthodox Jukebox

2012 3:34

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About When I Was Your Man

A piano ballad at heart, "When I Was Your Man" still translates beautifully to guitar, and many players choose to fingerpick or use a gentle hybrid-picking approach to capture the rolling, chordal feel of the original keys part. In C major with a tempo of 112 BPM, the chord movement is fairly straightforward, but the real work is in voicing those chords cleanly and letting each note ring so the emotional weight of the progression comes through. Watch out for the transitions into the pre-chorus, where the harmony shifts quickly enough to catch you off guard at first. Use the Practice Toolbar to loop those passages slowed down until your fretting hand finds the changes without hesitation. Bruno Mars wrote this as a stripped-back, confessional piece, and that sparseness means every buzzing string or muted note will show. If you play this in a Pop context, clean tone and even dynamics matter far more than any flashy technique.

• The song sits in C major at 112 BPM, making it a comfortable tempo for beginner and intermediate players to work on clean chord transitions.
• Fingerpicking or hybrid picking suits the arrangement well, replicating the rolling, arpeggiated feel of the original piano part on guitar.
• Because the texture is sparse and exposed, left-hand muting discipline and consistent right-hand dynamics are the two main things to practise.