Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper
Shallow chords
Shallow by Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper is an intermediate song in Em, played with no capo. The whole sheet is 7 chords (Em, D, G, C, Am, Bm, A) across 3 sections: Verse changes expanded → Chorus changes expanded → Build-up changes expanded. 6 of the 7 shapes are open chords. Shapes that use a barre: Bm. It sits at roughly 80 BPM.
Simplified practice arrangement. Section repetitions are practice cues rather than a verified transcription of the recording.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: Bm → D, 2 times.
- Difficulty
- Intermediatebarre shape Bm
- Key
- Emwith no capo
- Tempo
- 80BPM
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 76 open, 1 with a barre
- Sections
- 3each with its own progression
Chords in Shallow
Frets read low E to high E, x means leave that string out.
Chord sheet
One chord per bar in this practice sheet. Follow the time signature shown beside each section; dots mark the remaining counts in the bar. Tap a bar to hear its chord, or loop the section to practise the changes.
Chord accompaniment only. Follow the section notes for this arrangement’s timing. Songs whose words are public domain →
Verse changes expanded4/4 · ♩=80
Chorus changes expanded4/4 · ♩=80
Build-up changes expanded4/4 · ♩=80
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play Shallow
Shallow by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper uses Em, D, G, C and Am in this no-capo guitar study, with Bm and A added for the build-up. Keep standard tuning. Every change is extended to four beats at 80 BPM, giving the hands time to move. These three studies separate verse, chorus and build-up harmony without claiming the original fingerpicked intro or a complete vocal timeline.
Keep the verse and chorus changes separate
Jonathan Richter’s teaching chart offers a basic triad version alongside an alternative picked intro. We use the basic version: the verse alternates Em–D–G with C–G–D. The chorus starts instead on Am, then moves D–G–D–Em. Its last Em is an arrival, not an instruction to stop counting before the next Am.
The source changes sometimes share a bar. Here each named chord deliberately receives a complete four-beat box, so the displayed twelve-entry verse and ten-entry chorus are extended exercises. Count the last beat of every grip before moving. When the sequence is secure, use the source chart to restore the shorter changes and vocal entrances. A steady practice count should not be confused with a recording’s phrase lengths.
Prepare Bm before the build-up
The study’s build-up follows Em–Bm–D–A twice. Bm is x-2-4-4-3-2: leave the sixth string silent, barre the second fret from string 5 toward string 1, then add the fingers at frets 4, 4 and 3. Test the high first string and fifth-string bass separately before trying a broad strum.
JustinGuitar’s lesson also singles out the bridge’s Bm as the main barre challenge. Keep that grip in the exercise rather than discovering it only when you reach the loudest passage. Bm7 can be a deliberate alternative arrangement, but its added A note changes the chord. Let the right hand remain light while the barre becomes reliable; vocal intensity does not require excessive fretting pressure.
Read the key label without inventing a transposition
Richter labels the song E minor, while the published piano/vocal edition labels its original key G major. E natural minor and G major share the same notes and key signature. This page uses the Em-centred label for its guitar accompaniment. That difference in tonal description does not itself call for moving the capo or shifting every chord.
The A major in the build-up contains C#, outside the shared natural-minor/major collection. Keep it A rather than silently replacing it with Am. Its open fifth string is the bass; D begins on string 4, and C and Am begin on string 5. Make those right-hand starting points part of the change, especially when moving from a six-string Em or G.
Give each singer space without guessing their pickups
The source lesson identifies the early exchange between Cooper and Gaga and the later shared chorus. Practise with two singers by agreeing who leads the next phrase and who supplies the count. Finish a cycle together before adding another pass. If a singer needs a different range, transpose the accompaniment consistently and rehearse the new Bm-related grip before starting again.
These boxes do not encode the singers’ exact pickups, sustained notes or syllable timing. The 80 BPM downstroke grid is slower practice, distinct from the selected publication’s 96 BPM marking. The picked intro uses additional voicings and melodic detail that are outside this basic version. Credits list Stefani Germanotta, Andrew Wyatt, Mark Ronson and Anthony Rossomando as writers; Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper are recorded separately as the two performers, not substituted for the songwriting team.
How to practise Shallow
Four steps computed from this sheet: the order the shapes are easiest to learn in, the changes that really occur in the progressions above, where each chord turns up, and the tempo ladder up to the speed marked here.
Learn the shapes easiest first
Em (0-2-2-0-0-0, beginner) → D (x-x-0-2-3-2, beginner) → G (3-2-0-0-0-3, beginner) → C (x-3-2-0-1-0, beginner) → Am (x-0-2-2-1-0, beginner) → A (x-0-2-2-2-0, beginner) → Bm (x-2-4-4-3-2, intermediate, needs a barre)
6 of the 7 shapes are open chords, so start there and leave Bm until the others change cleanly.
Drill the changes this sheet actually uses
D → G4×G → D4×Am → D2×Bm → D2×
These counts come from the progressions on this page, so they are the changes you will actually play, not a generic list of pairs to practise.
Know where each chord turns up
- Emevery section
- Devery section
- GVerse changes expanded, Chorus changes expanded
- CVerse changes expanded
- AmChorus changes expanded
- BmBuild-up changes expanded
- ABuild-up changes expanded
Climb the tempo ladder
Start at 48 BPM and move up only when a full pass is clean: 48 → 60 → 72 → 80 BPM. The tempo marked on this sheet is 80 BPM, and the last step is the one that always feels like a jump. Stay at 72 for longer than feels necessary.
The section to leave until last is Build-up changes expanded (8 bars in this sheet).
Playing Shallow with a capo
This sheet needs no capo. Each card shows what you would finger at that capo position so the song still sounds exactly as written. Useful when the shapes above are awkward, or when you want to sing it higher without learning new chords.
No capoas written
Em D G C Am Bm A
6 of 7 stay open
Fret 1
Ebm C# F# B Abm Bbm Ab
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 2
Dm C F Bb Gm Am G
4 of 7 stay open
Fret 3
C#m B E A F#m Abm F#
2 of 7 stay open
Fret 4
Cm Bb Eb Ab Fm Gm F
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 5
Bm A D G Em F#m E
5 of 7 stay open
Fret 6
Bbm Ab C# F# Ebm Fm Eb
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 7
Am G C F Dm Em D
6 of 7 stay open
Working out a different key? The capo calculatordoes the same arithmetic for any chord set.
More songs built on the same chords
If Shallow clicks, these use the closest set of shapes, so the chords you just learned keep working.
More intermediate songs to learn after this one: 500 Miles, The One That Got Away, Treat You Better, Landslide.
These chords across the songbookHow often each chord in Shallow turns up across all 104 songs on this site, and what it most often moves to next. The counts come from the sheet library itself, not from theory.
155bars of this chord across the songbook
43songs use this shape
Most often followed by C, 27×.
323bars of this chord across the songbook
58songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 52×.
509bars of this chord across the songbook
77songs use this shape
Most often followed by D, 89×.
420bars of this chord across the songbook
70songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 115×.
125bars of this chord across the songbook
35songs use this shape
Most often followed by F, 23×.
84bars of this chord across the songbook
17songs use this shape
Most often followed by A, 13×.
134bars of this chord across the songbook
24songs use this shape
Most often followed by D, 19×.