How to play Better Man by Robbie Williams
Better Man is one of Robbie Williams’ most popular songs and is also the title track of his 2024 biopic film Better Man. Originally from his 2000 album Sing When You’re Winning this version of Better Man is based on Robbie’s concert version from that time. Featuring common open-position chords, and a moderately slow tempo, this chart makes an excellent rhythm guitar piece for developing players.
Chords: G Em Am7 D Dsus4
Pick or Fingers? Pick will produce the right tone and attack on steel strings but it also works with finger strumming on nylon strings.
Acoustic or Electric? Sounds good on all steel-string guitars.
How do count the strum pattern? The strumming pattern is a little complex for an otherwise simple song. The 1st and 4th beats are just plain one-beat strums, but the 2nd and 3rd beats have a syncopated down-strum between them. Count this as “1 2 and a (3) e and 4” (clap on the bolded syllables). Listen carefully to the Robbie Williams live version, follow the down and up strums as indicated in the chart and it should work for you.
Relevant pages in Modern Guitar Chord Styles 1 : To learn more about the chords and rhythms used in Better Man check out pages 5, 6, 8 and 32, 14 and 24, 10 and 31.
Need a bit of help?
Modern Guitar Chord Styles 1 is the perfect companion for our song guides. It will teach you how to read the rhythm slash notation used in our charts (and in professional theatre and studio charts) and is specially designed to help beginners speed up their chord changes, master strumming patterns, and many other techniques.
