Mumford and Sons – I Will Wait (Chords)

Mumford and Sons – I Will Wait (Chords)

With Mumford and two of his sons toting Mya-Moe ukes I was hoping to find some ukulele action on their new album. No such luck though. If there’s any there, I missed it.

Nonetheless, the lead single from the album is pretty great and – with the addition of a capo – works well on uke. If you don’t want to use a capo you can play along with the live version which is one fret lower.

Suggested Strumming

The strumming gets a bit involved. You can follow the guitar you can use this half bar pattern

d – d – – u d –

So the second down is long and the up is short (and accented). So played twice it’s this:

Which sounds like this (slow then up to speed):


Strum

Use the half bar pattern:

Intro and Bridge Twice for Am and G. Once for C, F, C and two for G the first time and four the second.

Verse Four times for each chord.

Chorus Four times for C, twice for Em, twice for G. (Eight times on the C chord after the first chorus).

Middle Three on C, one on Cmaj7, three on the Am, one on F and C, two on G.

The dynamics on this one smell like Teen Spirit. If you’re playing this on just uke it’s worth dropping down to just one down strum per chord in the quiet bits.

Buy the MP3

View Comments

30 Comments

  1. bwachter70 September 25th, 2012 6:48 pm

    Thanks! This strum sounds like a lot of the stuff on the first album as well.

  2. Woodshed September 26th, 2012 10:20 am

    bwachter70: Absolutely! From now on this is the Mumford strum.

  3. Conor September 26th, 2012 11:09 am

    Thanks for this! This song sounds very familiar to Roll Away Your Stone. Haven’t heard the album yet but I hope it’s not a carbon copy of their last one, even though I loved that album.

  4. Woodshed September 26th, 2012 10:38 pm

    Conor: It is very similar to their last album. Stylistically, it’s pretty much identical. That doesn’t bother me too much though. They’re good at what they do.

  5. BigE September 28th, 2012 10:13 am

    Many thanks for this, haven’t been playing long and it’s really given me something to get my chord changes up to speed :-)

  6. Woodshed September 28th, 2012 10:29 am

    BigE: Good luck with it!

  7. Alex October 1st, 2012 5:09 am

    Thanks for putting the chords up Woodshed! Love this song! :D

  8. Woodshed October 1st, 2012 11:02 am

    Alex: You’re welcome!

  9. Jess October 7th, 2012 4:50 pm

    This sounds so much like their old stuff because it is.. it was originally released as “Untitled” in 2010 as the B-Side to “The Cave”, then named “Nothing Is Written” before the new chorus was added, turning into “I Will Wait”.

    Anyway, thanks for this! Never could get my head around Mumford strumming patterns, so this should make both guitar and uke easier for me now!

  10. Woodshed October 8th, 2012 10:35 pm

    Jess: Thanks for the info. That makes a lot of sense.

  11. BigE October 10th, 2012 5:06 pm

    It may seem like a nit pick but I think the Cmaj7 on the PDF is wrong, should it be just 2nd on the A string without the 3rd on the E??

  12. dsump October 10th, 2012 10:03 pm

    Woodshed: I love your blog. I have been playing for 4 years now, and I get my tabs almost exclusively here! Thanks for doing this!

    Side note: have you heard of King Charles? They sing a song with Mumford and Sons called “The Brightest Lights”. It’s great!

  13. Woodshed October 11th, 2012 10:04 am

    dsump: Thanks for the tip. I haven’t. I’ll go check it out right now.

  14. Woodshed October 11th, 2012 10:06 am

    BigE: Yeah, you can play it like that. I just prefer this inversion here.

  15. kian October 17th, 2012 11:22 pm

    verse 2 and 3 are the same strum right?

  16. Woodshed October 18th, 2012 10:35 am

    kian: It’ll work for the third verse but you can also follow the song way and just do one down strum for each chord.

  17. kian October 18th, 2012 8:45 pm

    woodshed: thanks for all the help and for posting the chords

  18. Woodshed October 19th, 2012 10:49 am

    kian: You’re welcome!

  19. Sharon November 6th, 2012 5:15 am

    Thanks for this – another song my kids have heard of :)

  20. Woodshed November 6th, 2012 7:09 am

    Sharon: You’re welcome. I hope they are suitably impressed.

  21. Zac November 26th, 2012 9:04 pm

    Absolutely loving the site, I think Old pine – Ben Howard, as you haven’t done anything by him, plus when the guitar kicks in it’s a great moment, and it’d be awesome to see that replicated on a uke!
    Thanks,
    Zac.

  22. Woodshed November 27th, 2012 10:38 am

    Zac: That sounds like it would be tricky to move to uke. I might have a go at doing a bit of it.

  23. Zyubba123 March 25th, 2013 2:05 pm

    I pleyed this song and i love it! but You should make some songs by coldplay too.

  24. Woodshed March 26th, 2013 7:50 am

    Zyubba123: Thanks! No plans for any Coldplay, I’m afraid.

  25. Stantonio April 20th, 2013 9:32 pm

    Great tune, thanks for putting it up. Could you possibly put up some of the chords or tabs for the other songs on the album? Such as ‘Hopeless Wanderer’ or ‘Lover of the Light’?

  26. Woodshed April 21st, 2013 4:30 pm

    Stantonio: No plans to. I’m sure you’ll find chords on Ultimate Guitar though.

  27. Stephanie November 12th, 2013 3:52 am

    Question: how do I know which one is Cmaj7 and just plain ol’ C on the PDF, since it doesn’t specify?

  28. Woodshed November 12th, 2013 11:28 am

    Stephanie: I’m not sure what you’re referring to. The chord shape is the last on the list and it’s played in the Middle section.

  29. Amanda October 13th, 2016 4:31 pm

    Question. If I don’t use a capo on the first fret can I still play these same chords? Total noob here. Thank you!

  30. Woodshed October 13th, 2016 5:40 pm

    Amanda: Yeah, you play the chords just the same as you would.

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