CMT Blog: Archive

I know people who love learning songs on the guitar by watching amateurs play them. It seems to be better than just reading the chords on a sheet of paper or getting tablature off the Internet.

So when I saw a Twitter from Lady Antebellum that they'd made a how-to video on playing "Need You Now," I knew it would be much better to learn it from the original artist. Because who better to tell you exactly how he plays it than the band's guitarist, Dave Haywood? That's a total godsend.

And it should be so easy to learn from a pro like Haywood. He explains everything so thoroughly and makes it look so easy. Yet watching this video made me feel like I just stumbled into an honors physics class at M.I.T. I'm lost the minute he says it's in the key of E but can also be played in the key of C with capo 4. WTH?

He goes on to say that the song revolves around the F and A minor chords. But that his F chord is played thusly: "If you can get your thumb down all the way down on the low string then have the high E string open then hammer on your middle finger here. Also on A minor, you can hammer on and off the B string." He also talks about how the chorus starts on a C chord and goes to E minor -- and how the bridge starts on A minor, then G over B, then C, then F to a G suspended. The cool thing is that once he's done explaining it all, there's a split screen video of Haywood playing it on one side and then a close-up of his fingers on the guitar fretboard on the other side.

It's fascinating to watch, but it's way more complicated to follow along than I ever thought. Even though I could never, ever play this song, watching Haywood's video reminds me just how talented and hard-working the musicians in Nashville are.