Make You Feel My Love was written by Bob Dylan for his album Time Out of Mind (1997). The song became a bit of a modern standard and was covered by more than 450 artists including Billy Joel, Garth Brooks, and Adele.
Creating guitar instrumentals of pop songs is a good exercise in reharmonization, phrasing, and recognizing melodic patterns.
The melody of Make You Feel My Love is built on a rhythmic and melodic pattern that is repeated throughout the entire song.
It’s a good idea to get catchy phrases like these under your fingers to use them in your own jazz solos (like you learn in our course Jazz Guitar Patterns & Phrases Volume 1).
In this lesson, you will learn how to play an instrumental version of Bob Dylan’s iconic song, both the chords and the melody.
Make You Feel My Love – Melody
The entire melody is in the C# major scale, in these two positions:
Backing Track
Listen & Play-Along
Make You Feel My Love (Melody) Guitar Pro 8 File
Make You Feel My Love – Chords
The chords (more of a bassline really) are based on Ane Brun’s version of Make You Feel My Love and consist of a combination of bass notes and voice leading.
Listen & Play-Along
Make You Feel My Love (Chords) Guitar Pro 8 File
I enjoy your content, thank you! All of your lessons are great, perfect for all levels. Advanced players can be challenged by “making it your own” of course, with substitutions, embellishments to the melody and changes in time/rhythm.
Thanks for the occasional lesson simple enough for beginners. I enjoy learning this.
I love the song, BTW. I do a slide guitar solo on it with my community choir.
I was not sure what the song was from the title. I played your instrumental recording and recognized it right away. And a nice tune – much better than many of Dylan’s tunes (and I am a big fan. Or should say was a big fan, as I don’t take out any of my any Dylan CDs anymore. Either he moved on or I did)
Still blows me away when Trisha Yearwood sings this tune. Thanks Dirk. Been playing it for years.
Easy going, nice & sweet recognizable melody- not too fast, not too slow, repetitive,
an effective Confidence Builder. Thank you.
PS I am working on Stompin at the Savoy, Nature Boy etc…
Nice surprise to hear this tune, long time ago. Not a Dylan fan but I give him credit for the song. Thanks for sharing.
Beautiful! I scarcely recall the Dylan version, but this is lovely. Thanks!