Shallow Chords by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper
The chords to Shallow by Lady Gaga might seem like a small thing to anyone hearing it for the first time, and to be honest, they are.
Even so, it's worth asking yourself: why has the video of a single song racked up more than 1.3 billion views on YouTube? On top of that, it won an Oscar for Best Original Song. So what is it that makes the song so appealing?
Sure, Lady Gaga is an attractive woman and Bradley Cooper is a tremendous actor as well as a heartthrob, but is that really what makes this song so popular? No, there's far more to see and pay attention to in this piece of music.
Shallow by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper
The songwriting credits for this track are shared among four composers: Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson, Andrew Wyatt, and Anthony Rossomando. That's right, four minds were involved in creating the lyrics and music of a single piece.
What stands out is that all four are lifelong musicians, two of them Oscar winners for their compositions and the other two Emmy winners for their musical work.
So this is no small feat, and that's why we shouldn't dismiss the musical contribution of the chords to Shallow by Lady Gaga.
Now then, the genre of this composition sits within country rock, though it's also a country ballad.
With that in mind, let's take a look at what Shallow by Lady Gaga has to offer.
Tempo of Shallow
Shallow by Lady Gaga is written in a 4/4 time signature and gives you freedom to work with the tempo, since it's marked Moderato. This means it falls somewhere between 80 and 108 beats per minute (quarter note).
That said, we think the best tempo for this piece is 84 bpm, as it stays closest to the original version. Of course, if you listen to the song in its original video, you'll notice there's some freedom and it doesn't follow the strict rule of the metronome.
Harmony of Shallow by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper
The harmony of Shallow by Lady Gaga isn't conventional, but it is common in country music. As a result, a guitarist in this genre will be familiar with it.
Verse
As for the chords to Shallow by Lady Gaga in the verse, we can find at least five.
The verse is built on the harmonic function of Em and then moves through a Dsus2/F# to land on G major. After that it goes to C major and uses a G as a passing chord to resolve on D major.
So we have the following progression:
Em - Dsus2/F# - G - C - D
This is what you need to work on to nail the sound, and perhaps the chord most people aren't so familiar with is Dsus2/F#, but there's nothing to be afraid of, because it's simply a Dsus2 where, instead of playing the D bass note, you play F# on the low string.
This is the entire intro and verse; there's no other chord apart from a few arpeggio arrangements you'll need to listen for.
Chorus
Let's move on to the chords to Shallow by Lady Gaga in the chorus of the song. Instead of reaching for the usual G major, it heads to Am instead.
After this opening Am, it seems to hold the chord, but it doesn't; rather, harmonically it plays a Gsus2 as a passing chord.
Next, we see it play the Dsus2/F# and then return to passing chords on Gsus2, Dsus2/F#, and resolve on Em7.
This gives us a looping chorus that runs the following progression:
Am - Gsus2 - Dsus2/F# - G - Dsus2/F# - Em7
Remember that we've included the PDF with the guitar chord shapes so you can download it and have a great resource for your practice sessions.
