Treat You Better chords

How to play Treat You Better

Play Treat You Better by Shawn Mendes with Am, G, F and C shapes and capo 1. In standard tuning those shapes sound Bbm, Ab, Gb and Db. These two accompaniment exercises isolate the verse and chorus chord movements, using one whole four-beat bar per entry at 85 BPM. Start with the F change, which is the only printed shape that requires a barre.

Use the capo-1 minor-key arrangement

De Jager Guitar School’s chart supplies capo 1, the Am–G–F verse movement and Am–G–F–C chorus movement. The Musicnotes piano/vocal/guitar edition identifies the 2016 song in Bb minor and 4/4. The capo raises the A-minor fingering family by one semitone to that sounding key.

Without the capo, the same fingers make an A-minor accompaniment. Do not put a capo on and then substitute Bbm for every printed Am: that would apply two different changes at once. Keep the shape names in front of you, check that the capo holds all six strings evenly, and tune with the capo in place before starting. A note pulled sharp by excessive pressure can make an otherwise correct chord sound wrong.

Prepare F without shortening the previous bar

The F diagram is 1-3-3-2-1-1 relative to the capo. Index finger covers the first relative fret, middle finger frets the third string, and ring and little fingers fret the fifth and fourth strings. With capo 1, that index barre sits at physical fret 2. The capo does not replace the barre required by this F shape.

Switch from G to F without dropping the end of the G bar. First fret F alone and check one string at a time. Then alternate G and F with a single first-beat strum, leaving the other beats available to prepare the hand. Add the four quarter-note downstrokes only after both first beats arrive on time. A partial F voicing can be a separate choice, but changing to Fmaj7 adds a note and changes the harmony; it is not an identical shortcut.

Notice what the chorus adds

The verse drill ends on F after Am and G. The chorus drill adds C after the same first three shapes. Under the capo that final C sounds Db major. Keep it present even if you find the first three changes more familiar: returning straight to Am would erase the difference between the two selected movements.

Am begins on the open fifth string, G and full F may use all six, and C returns to a fifth-string bass. Practise that change of strumming range alongside the left hand. For C, keep the low E silent and let its open third and first strings ring. Under capo 1 those open-shape strings also rise by a semitone. They are part of the sounding Db chord, even though the fingering diagram still labels the shape C.

Keep the practice clock separate from the record

The Musicnotes edition marks a quarter-note pulse of 170. These exercises use 85 BPM and expand each written chord entry to four beats, so their timing is deliberately slower and simpler. The three-box verse drill is not a claim that the recorded verse consists of three bars. Likewise, the four-box chorus drill is a change exercise rather than a complete performance map.

Count every silent eighth-note slot in the grid as part of the same four-beat bar. Keep the downstrokes even before adding accents or a more detailed groove. The source chart has other passages and endings that are not printed here, so leave the automatic loop only after you have completed a full exercise. The original guitar riff and vocal rhythm are outside these chord studies; no note-by-note part is reproduced.