Advanced Acoustic, Motown & Soul, Song Book

For Once in My Life chords by Stevie Wonder

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For Once In My Life | Chords + Lyrics

Intro

||: F :|| x6

Verse 1

Verse 2

Solo (Key change)

Verse 3

Outro

||: Gb E A D | D Db9 :||
(Someone who needs me) Oh, for once in my life.
(Someone who needs me) Yeah, somebody that needs me.
(Someone who needs me) Oh, baby, for once in my life.

For Once In My Life’s chords and progressions

Explaining For Once In My Life’s chords by Stevie Wonder could easily turn into a University dissertation. If you then start looking at Sinatra‘s version as well, you may need to call a keyboard player and ask a few questions…

The chromatic ascending movements in the opening line F – Faug – F6 – D7b9/F#, later on, varied with an F#dim7 at the end, or is this essentially the same thing?

This is followed by the Latin sounding Gm – Gmmaj7 – Gm7 – Gmmaj7 – Gm – Gmmaj7 – Gm7 – C7.

It’s all just too much information, to sum up here in a few sentences. What I need to do is record an 8-series, step-by-step lesson guide on how to play For Once In My Life.

So I guess I’ll have to put a coming soon disclaimer here… Until then, get to work on playing For Once In My Life using the chords and lyrics you see above!

If you stick with it long enough, you’ll find a way to do it.

For Once in My Life – A benchmark song for musicians!

If Master Blaster and Sir Duke are benchmark songs in a musician’s education, then For Once In My Life surely is the dissertation.

I did a gig with a keyboard player once who hadn’t played this song before, or at least not for a while. He was an amazing reader and jazz improvisation master.

When we came to the solo, which modulates from F to F#, he read the entire thing, flawlessly.

There is not a sight reading course in this world that will enable you to do this, rather you need decades of gigging, reading, improvising, and fully becoming one with your instrument before you can pull something like that off.

This (very) long journey starts with just being able to play For Once In My Life’s chords from beginning to end.

The next step would be to understand the chord progression as Roman numerals, then play it live many, many times.

Following this, you need to find ways to play the chords in all areas of the neck, learn the solo just like Stevie plays it, and then maybe one day, twenty years from now, you’ll be able to do what the best keyboard player I’ve met did.

If I could only remember his name…

For Once In My Life chords | Related pages

Advanced Acoustic

The advanced acoustic tunes use big chord extensions and sometimes, unique and complex chords that incorporate open strings.

Study these in-depth and you will gain a complete understanding of the guitar fretboard, including how to build any scale, arpeggio, or chord.

Five similar tunes with chords and lyrics

When you can play For Once In My Life's chords, try these five tunes from the song book.

Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder is the legend whom most practicing musicians come across that has a life-changing impact on them.

Stevie’s natural groove and ability to purely express music are untouched. His vocal phrasing and songwriting are second to none.

Stevie Wonder on the web

Motown & Soul

You can learn how to play these Motown & Soul tunes, and in doing so, gain yourself a repertoire so you can jam with, or even join a working band.

Study these tunes in-depth and you will map out the fretboard, master the CAGED system, and learn how to design a rhythm guitar part that works in a band.