Wonderful Tonight – Eric Clapton

You'll find two overall guitar parts in this song, with one being the main backing (picked out) and one being the lead. This lead isn't so much lead as it is a nice melodic accompaniment to the song itself. Both guitar parts are quite easy in terms of arrangement, so with a few picking points from the lesson video and a few suggested fingerings you should be able to play this one pretty quickly.

This is what you'll play for the main guitar during the intro/pre-verse:

Here's the verse theme: Notice that it is almost identical to the intro/pre-verse, with the only slight change being at the end on the Dsus2. You walk on the A string with a 0 – 2. That will indicate to you that the next chord is going to be a C chord.

The C chord starts the chorus:

There aren't many variations here, but the video lesson will help you if you have trouble. After this you'll play the same intro theme you played earlier, but just one time through using the G6 | Dsus2 | C | Dsus2 from earlier:

You'll then have another verse, which is identical the verse you played earlier. Up next is another chorus, but it's just slightly different at the end.

Notice the change here takes place in the last two measures, where you hold the G chord out and then do the same walk on the A string from 0 – 2. As mentioned earlier, this will indicate you are going to a C chord.

That will be for the bridge: As you can see here, there's nothing really new in the bridge except the last two measures, which are pretty easy to follow in the song. Once you complete the bridge, you'll go back to:

→ the intro/pre-verse theme (then) → the verse theme

Next will be the final chorus, which is this:

Play the above tab twice (eight measures total) and then end the final chorus with:

After that you'll basically play the intro/pre-verse theme as an outro using the same tab: That covers the main guitar. The only other thing we need to do is check out the lead accompanying guitar, but it's pretty easy. Here's the lead guitar for the intro/pre-verse: Quick Point: That last 15th fret bend on the B string is a bend and release, with the bend taking place at the end of the measure and the “release” part of it coming down in the first measure of the verse. So when you bring it back down you should be on the first G6 chord of the verse. You will want to add a bit of vibrato to it as you release the bend without picking the string again. It will give you a nice fade out.

The tab you see above is actually the only lead part in the song. You'll recall from the main guitar that you play the intro/pre-verse theme right after the first chorus, but it's played through just once. This is the lead that is played there:

As you can see here, this is just the last four measures of the intro/pre-verse lead theme. So, the 15th fret bend here should be approached exactly the same.

The outro for the lead is also the same as the first one you learned, so that's a plus. However, this time you can let that 15th fret released note ring out like this:

That's the whole song! I'll give you some fingerings below for both parts so that you can get a grasp on the picking and movements, but you might not really need them if you watch the lesson video.

You'll also get a chord version of this song as a reference, which is likely what you'll spend most of your time using once you get the picking arrangement down here. That will be included in another reference file. *Note: There aren't any stacked notes in the original version of this song, so you don't have to play it as a true fingerstyle passage. It does sound prettier, but it's technically just a picked out song with an actual guitar pic.

Here's my suggested fingerings:

Recall that the verse theme is identical to above, with the only change being the 0-2 walk. You'll be able to do that without any problem. Just use your 2nd finger for the “2” in the 0-2 walk on the A string. It will set you up for the C chord. Here's the chorus:

You do have a few chord-based fingering options here, but I discuss that in the lesson video. Basically the options are in the third and fourth measures. Notes in parentheses on the D/F# are there to show you the “traditional” fingering method often used for the D chord. Realize that the D/F# is basically just a D chord with the F# note (the 3rd interval in D Major) being the note that takes over the original “D” root tone. The thumb shouldn't be hard to drop down on the low E string at the 2nd fret. It's how the D/F# is most commonly formed.

The last measure is JUST an Em7, but you don't play the A string. The (3) is there in case you just want to use an Em7 standard shape. There is a G chord held over before going into the bridge (“I feel wonderful...”) but it's just a G chord so it's easy to finger. Other than that, those are the only fingerings you'll need for the song. Any other part is just repeated.

Here's the fingerings for the lead part during the intro/pre-verse theme. Remember that it is shortened to only use the last 4 measures later on, but these fingerings will cover the entire lead accompanying piece:

I mention this in the lesson video, but if you follow these fingerings, you'll find that the bends are much easier because you can back them up with your 1st and/or 2nd fingers. Just be sure to bend with your 3rd finger.

That's the song! Once you get comfortable with these bits and pieces you can incorporate them into the chord-only version and even add your own little flavor if you want.

The chord version is provided on another reference sheet with the basic chord shapes included to help you.