Learn to play the beautiful piano piece "All of Me" by John Legend!

Yes! We’re going to be adapting this song for the guitar. Any time you’re going from piano to guitar, the chords will, of course, be the same, but you can really get creative with the arrangement. For this lesson, I’ll start off by giving you a very beginner-level version of the song, and by the end of it, I’ll have some more advanced techniques for more advanced players.

To play along with the original recording, you’ll need a capo on the 1st fret.

The Chords

To start off with, this song can be broken up into three different chord progressions.

Verses and Intro: Em, C, G, D (one bar each)
Pre-Chorus/Bridge: Am, G, D (one bar each)
Chorus: G, Em, Am, D (two bars each)
- Chorus Tagline: (same as verses and intro)

Something you can try doing if you’re comfortable with it is playing a modified version of the D chord. It’s just a C chord shape played two frets up. It’s just a nice variation that sounds sort of interesting and quirky.

Rhythm and Strumming Pattern

The rhythm pattern for this song is quite specific.

1 2 + 3 4

For the strumming pattern, you’re only playing beats 1, the “and” of 2, and 4.

When strumming, you could use all down strums, but I find that using an up strum for that “and” beat works pretty well, too. When you’re strumming, your hand should more or less be keeping a steady up-down rhythm the whole time whether or not you’re actually hitting the strings on each beat. This helps keep time, acting as a metronome of sorts. If you’re already doing this, your hand is already coming up on the “ands,” making it easier to strum the “and” of beat 2 with an up strum.

Strumming Variations and Fingerstyle Picking

For more advanced players, you could try to mix it up a bit. This adds to the overall composition of the song, and it keeps it from sounding too same-y throughout the whole thing!

One thing you could try instead of strumming the full chords is plucking the strings with your fingers. What I’ve done in my version is place my thumb on the bass note of the chord, and then using fingers 1, 2, and 3 to pluck strings 2, 3, and 4, respectively. I’ve only played the bass note (thumb) on beat 1 of each bar. I did this style for the verses and then switched to strumming for the pre-chorus.

Another thing you can try is full fingerstyle, picking one string at a time, either in finger sequence or not. You can get really creative here, mixing it up as you go, coming up with your own pattern, and trying different things.

For EVEN more advanced players, you can try incorporating lines of the melody into your picking pattern.