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Michael David Rosenberg, better known by his stage name Passenger, is an English singer-songwriter and musician. Previously the main vocalist and songwriter of Passenger, Rosenberg opted to keep the band’s name for his solo work after the band dissolved in 2009. 

And for this tutorial, we are going to learn how to play “Let Her Go”. Enjoy!

Hello Guitar Players! Welcome back to RiffRiff.com Easy Guitar Songs to Play on Guitar. I want to show you how to play “Let her Go” by Passengers.

I’ll split the lesson into two parts.

The first part, which is this one, is going to be about the finger style intro, because that’s quite complicated. And I want to dedicate a complete video on just that beautiful little tune in the beginning.

After that, we’re going to go into part two of the lesson where we’re going to cover the rhythm and the strum pattern, basically where he starts singing.

How To Play “Let Her Go” on the Guitar – Intro

Now there’s a little bit of finger style going on. I’m going to cover that in the next video.

We are just going to cover the intro, the finger style intro. So before we begin, make sure you put a cable on the 7th fret and the guitar is tuned in standard tuning.

Now let’s see how to play this intro.

Now, we’re going to divide the intro into a couple of different parts so that it’s easy to understand.

So we begin with our Pinky finger on third fret. Now this is the third fret. Okay. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, fifth, and so on.

So the third fret of the B string, which is the second string. This is the first string, and this is the 6th string. So we put our pinkie finger on the third fret of the second string. All right. We play that with our index finger.

There is no rule regarding the finger style picking pattern because different players like to use different fingers for different strings.

I just like to use these three fingers, my thumb, my index and my middle finger. Some people like to bring in their ring finger as well.

So if you want to do that, you can do that. But basically, we’re just going to keep these two fingers for the lower strings and the thumb for the upper strings.

So you play the third fret on the second screen, and then you play open on the first string. Okay. So I’m using these two fingers. Then you go back to the third fret on the second string. So and then you come to the first fret on the second string.

That’s the very beginning of the song.

Now comes a little complicated part. So what we’re doing over here is we are bringing this F shape with our thumb.

Now, this technique that is being used in the song for the intro. So please make sure you grasp that technique first.

What we’re doing is we just bring our thumb over and putting it on the first fret of the top string.

Now there is no other way to do it. You can’t put your first finger over here and then play like this.

That’s not possible.

The only way to play it is by putting your thumb over the first fret of the top string. All right. So you have this, then you do this. So here what I’m doing is I’m playing the first fret on the top string with my thumb at the same time.

I’m playing the third string open like this. So first fit on the top string and open on the third string. And you want to do a hammer on from open to the second fret and third string. All right. So you get this once again.

And then you want to play the first fret on the second string with my index finger. And you want to play the fourth string per fret.

All right. So basically, we have the second F, seven shape, third fret on the fourth string, second fret on the third string, and first fret on the second string. Although we’re not using the third string right now. So you want to play them together, right? The third fret on the fourth string and first fret on the second string.

So from the beginning, we have this.

All right. Once again.

And then you do this.

So we are playing the first fret again on the top string.

Then we are playing the third string, second fret.

Then we are playing the fourth string, third fret over here.

And then we are playing two strings at a time with these two fingers. We are playing the first and second strings. The first string is open and the second string, first fret, play them together. So you get this.

And then again, you want to play the top string again. You want to play third string, fourth string, and then the second string, first fret, this one. Right. So you get this once again.

Now let’s play whatever you’ve learned from the very beginning once again.

So we have learned the first part of the intro. Congratulations. Please rewind the video if you haven’t understood anything, because now we’re going to move to the next part. So the next part goes like this.

That’s the next part once again.

So let’s see what we’re doing is we begin by playing the third fret on the top string with our ring finger and the third fret on the second string with our Pinky finger. We’re going to play them together. Okay.

Got it. As usual, play your first string open.

And then you again want to play the second string, third fret. But this time, instead of the top string, you’re going to play the fourth string open. They both are being played together. So you get this.

Then you again come to the first fret on the second string. So you get this once again.

And now you do this.

So we come to a minor and we play first. You want to hold that shape? Okay. This shape is very important. The shape is open on the fifth string, second fret on the fourth string, second fret on the third string, and first fret on the second string.

So you want to begin by doing this.

So here you’re playing the fifth string open and the third string open.

You’re going to play them together. And then the same time you do hammer on from open to the second fret on a third string, if you remember, we did something like that before as well like this.