How to play I’ve Seen It by Olivia Dean
I’ve Seen It by Olivia Dean is a beautiful fingerstyle ballad from her mega successful 2025 album The Art of Loving. Whilst not one of her big pop hits, I’ve Seen It is a great song choice for acoustic guitarists and singers. The original features several bar-chords between the 7th - 10th frets but our TAB version includes some suggestions for how to make it a little easier.
Chords : G D B7 C Cm Gsus4 Em Emsus A7 D7
Picking technique : I’ve Seen It uses fingerstyle picking on acoustic guitar. It suits both steel and nylon string instruments. The picking designation above the numbers in the opening bars give you the finger pattern to use ; P = thumb, i = index finger, m = middle and a = ring finger (p i m a).
Can it work on electric guitar? Whilst the original is played on acoustic I’ve Seen It will work on an electric guitar but won’t sound great on really narrow gauge strings; finger picking needs stronger strings to create a full tone. It could be adapted to pick style, better for the projection of an electric guitar, and the bar-chord work will be easier than on acoustic.
What does ‘to Coda 2nd time’ mean? The word ‘coda’ basically means ‘ending’ in music. On the last line of the chart you see two bars with held chords (Am7 to D7) followed by a repeat sign that takes you back to the start of the 2nd line. On the repeat, play up to the direction to go to the coda. It’s the final bar and displays the Coda sign at the start of the bar; a circle with two lines crossed through it (the ‘hot cross bun’ sign!) and this bar is the ending of the song.
What does the big arrow mean in the final bar? This is a ‘diminuendo’ sign. It tells you to diminish (reduce) the volume and rhythm intensity towards the end of the phrase. Think of it like parking the car; slow down gradually to finish :)
Relevant pages in Modern Guitar Chord Styles 1 : To learn more about the chords and finger picking in Imagine go to pages 8, 12-13, 17-19 and 45 in MGCS1. For a detailed course in finger picking and it’s stylistic applications check out the very useful Modern Guitar Fingerstyle 1.
Need a bit of help?
Modern Guitar Chord Styles 1 and Modern Guitar Fingerstyle 1 are excellent tutor books and perfect companions for our song guides. They teach you how to read the rhythm slash notation and the metric TAB used in our charts and are specially designed to train beginners to speed up their chord changes, master strumming and finger picking patterns, and many other techniques.
