Almost heaven, West Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River Life is old there, older than the trees Younger than the mountains, growing like a breeze Country roads, take me home To the place I belong
West Virginia, mountain mama Take me home, country roads
Hey there I'm Thomas Michel from Real Guitar Success. Today we're gonna take a
look at Country Roads by John Denver or best known as Take Me Home Country Roads.
I think that might be his theme song certainly one of his most popular songs.
I really like this song for students learning guitar for two reasons.
One is the chords are pretty easy and secondly it uses a fairly common song
form verse-chorus verse-chorus then a bridge and then another chorus or two or
three depending on how you wanna go. Learning about song forms is really
helpful when you're learning songs. It's much easier to see the pattern then they
just treat every line as a new line. So with that said I'm gonna teach you the
chords of the verse, the chorus, the bridge. At the end, we're gonna refine the
strum a little bit and then I'll go ahead and play the whole thing through
and give you a chance to practice everything. Let's start with the chords
for the verse. To make it easy, let's just map it out by going one strum for each
chord so start with a G chord. I'm using a four finger G but anyone that's
comfortable for you is fine. Da, da, da, dah then on to an E minor chord.
Da, da, da, dah. Now D da-da-da-dah C Da, da,
da, dah and then G. Now repeat the whole sequence. Again - G
E minor, D, C and G and it makes up one whole verse. So we're gonna put kind of a
simple strum just to get through this part. We're gonna go down, down, up down, up
down, up. So one strum for 4G - da, dah, dah dah go to E minor dah and so on.
So let's try that once through. We will repeat that progression twice with the
simple strum. Ready hit G, E minor to D, going to C and G
and repeat that - G, E minor, D,
and C and G.
Okay we've got the verse, the basic foundations of the verse. Let's try the
chorus. Now the chords for the chorus G, E minor, D, C. Hey, it's the same chords. Yes,
I like it but watch out. They come in a little
different order. I'll show you. Country so G take me to D this time, now to E minor
going to C
now to start over we're going to G to D
C take me G and that's the whole chorus.
Let's do it together once with that little strum. Here we go
da da G to D and going to E minor to C chord
now G to D, going to C and G.
Okay I think we're ready for the bridge now. The chords on the bridge are a little
different. It uses a lot of the same chords but we're gonna add one more and
we'll call this an F chord. I'm gonna do a version without a bar so if you were
to do a bar F it would look something like this. But an F without a bar looks
like this very much like a C chord . There,. I got my finger in the right place now.
So the C chord looks like this and to make it into an F you move that second
finger over and the pinky down on the fourth string third fret.
I slightly touched the sixth string because I don't want that to sound
that's not really a part of the chord. And I don't hit the first string so nice
strum and strum like that o I don't really hit the first string. Let's map
out the chords for the bridge now. We'll store with an E minor.
Go ahead. Go to the G now. Again,
now to C, back to G and end on to
D that's the first half. Now were going to the part that has the F chord. First E minor
to the F to C now back to G we're gonna end on to D
and another D. Hey let's try that with that simple
little strum. Here we go, start with the E minor. Hit it. E minor to D
and to G to G now to C back to G and to D
that's the first half. One more D. Here's the part with the F,
start with E minor, now to the F chord
C and G to D at the end
1 2 make it 3 4 yeah 4 country back to the chord.
Okay let's talk strumming for a little bit. Now you're welcome to just use that
simple down down-up down-up down-up strum. But if you want to take it up a
notch, we're gonna have a little finesse to it. Listen to this. This is the basic
strum in G down down-up down-up.
Now here is with a little finesse add to it.
That's better doesn't it? Did you notice I'm still doing down down-up down-up
down-up? The difference is when I hit the strings
I'm not always hitting just straight down and up
sometimes I'm hitting the lower string and sometime the higher string. Now the
easiest way to get this is to kind of experiment and see what sounds good to you.
You don't have to copy me exactly but I'm gonna give you some tips and I'll show
you what I'm doing. I'll call this low when I hit the low string and I'll call
this high when I hit the top three strings or so.
Low, high, high, low, high, high, high.
You see it has a little bit of motion to it . Low, high, high, low, high, high, high.
Now don't go too far down and too far up. Stay close to the strings so you can
move easily and slightly twist your hand so it's smooth.
Okay now we're going to play it once through all the way. We're gonna follow
that verse chorus then another verse chorus. The bridge section and then
with a chorus. You'll come to either play along I'll call out the chords as we go
or you can just watch and try it again afterwards. Here we go.
I'll count them one two one two ready hit it - Da, da, da, da to E minor da, da, da, da D, da, da da da C and to G
again same thing, da da da da E minor da, da, da, da going to E, da, da da da C and
to G
then to D, C going to G. Now another verse
again da da da da E minor da da da da D da da da da C and G. Chorus - Country road take me home
that's a D chord to the E minor. I belong - that's a C
to G to D
and were going to C and to G
Let's take it to the bridge now E minor - to G
On to C back to G and to D. Two D is there
Now the F is coming up. E minor first, F, C, G and on D and the second D.
Here we go, chorus is coming up G - country road take me home E minor and to C
off to G then to E C and G - C C C country road.
Okay that's a wrap for now. Thanks for being here and hanging out with me.
Please if you haven't already subscribe to my YouTube channel that way we can
keep in touch. Okay I hope to see you again soon. Bye.