Guitar Chords For Country
Songs
Country music has a fairly long and
established tradition with common guitar chords for country songs. It also has its own set of
sub-genres that are defined by their repertoire and playing styles. Nevertheless these sub-genres
have several things in common as far as the basic structure of music itself is concerned – they are
lyric and accompaniment based, and they use similar guitar chords for country songs for the
accompaniments.
In order to play guitar chords for
country songs, you’ll want to learn and understand the open chord forms. These are the chords
played in the first three positions and have at least one open string in their construction. There
are really only about fifteen or so of these chords.
Take care when you are learning them to
pay attention to where the root is for these chords and only strum from this note to the highest
one. Take for example the D major chord:
You only play strings four to one. The root of the
chord is the open fourth string, the note D.
Once you have the open chords under
control, you should learn at least the major and minor barre chords based on the sixth and fifth
strings. You may also find the dominant seventh barre chords useful.
The great thing about barre chords is
that they are moveable forms and provide a great base to guitar chords for country songs. What this
means is that you can take the same basic shape and move it up and down the neck changing only its
root note. Take for example the F major barre chord.
The shape of this chord places the root on the sixth string, the
note F. Notice that there are no open strings. If you take this basic shape and move it up to the
third fret, you are now playing a G major chord.
All barre chords are moveable in this manner. In order to use them
effectively, you need to learn at least the basic note names on the fifth and sixth strings up to
the seventh fret. The following table identifies these notes for you.
| Fret: |
Open
|
I
|
II
|
III
|
V
|
VII
|
| Fifth
String: |
A
|
-
|
B
|
C
|
D
|
E
|
| Sixth
String: |
E
|
F
|
-
|
G
|
A
|
B
|
In guitar chords for country songs, the
guitarist will often play a simple bass line as well as the chords. An extremely common way of
doing this is to play a bass note on beats one and three of a four-four meter, while playing the
chords on beats two and four. To get you started, simply play the root of the chord for your bass
line. The following tab gives you a C major chord with this kind of bass
pattern.
Once you are comfortable playing guitar
chords for country songs in this manner you may wish to play another bass note on beat three. Stick
to notes that fall on strings four to six in the beginning. This final tab shows an A major chord
with an alternating bass pattern. Take your time to learn it by playing slowly and
evenly.
|