Jolene, Dolly Parton’s signature song, features an easy chord progression and unique structure, making it an enjoyable song to perform live.
It also features several strumming patterns that will help develop your chord-transitioning capabilities and enable you to play this tune like an expert quickly. When you master these techniques, you’ll find yourself playing this tune like a pro in no time!
Verse
Dolly Parton’s hit Jolene song provides an ideal opportunity for practicing changing chords in rhythm with ease and familiarity, its opening riff making for an easy entry point and its chord progression providing familiar practice opportunities to any who have ever played rock or country music.
Alternating G and C chord progressions is unusual in a song, yet works amazingly here. It demonstrates how simple chord changes can dramatically transform both mood and direction in an interpretation of lyrics.
The first verse may be challenging, but it only lasts four bars so take your time and don’t rush through it. Once you master both intro and chorus you should have no trouble playing this song with ease; all it takes now is some practice for your performance to become polished! Best wishes!
Chorus
Jolene’s chorus provides an ideal opportunity to practice fingerpicking skills, yet has some challenging rhythm patterns. With its 110 bpm tempo and unique chord progression, it provides ample practice opportunities. Once you master its intro/main fingerpicking riff and verse sections, however, constructing its chorus should become much simpler.
The chorus starts off in E minor before transitioning to G and C with some slight variation, including an F sharp bass note near its end. Once these four steps have been repeated again before returning back to the verse, their strumming patterns become slightly more complicated but you’ll soon be playing Jolene like an expert!
Bridge
Jolene’s bridge is one of the trickier parts to learn, featuring an intricate chord progression and complex finger picking patterns that require you to have advanced fingerpicking techniques. However, it is an ideal song to practice fingerstyle on and help advance your skills further if need be – for further assistance please take a look at our Folk Fingerstyle Module.
It also utilizes a minor key, which may prove challenging in certain styles of playback. But once familiarized with its chords and scales, it should become fairly straightforward to pick out.
There are only three main sections to this song, the intro/main fingerpicking riff, verse and chorus. Once these sections have been mastered, tackling bridge and interlude shouldn’t be too challenging; just remember to focus on strumming patterns rather than trying to rush through this song! Be patient and you will eventually master this one!
Interlude
Treble is crisp and clear with ample articulation and no sign of roll off or muted high end detail, thanks to quad-BA drivers delivering outstanding resolution on parts which should be sharp without etching or excessive fatness. Furthermore, this track feels very immersive; both cymbals and room noise have clear presence.
On more challenging vocal tracks, the Jolene excels at handling Leona Lewis with ease; her lyrics remain crystal clear while never becoming harsh as she shapes shifts during “Run”. Furthermore, its uptempo guitar-based track “Duel” by Bond sounds clear and controlled without becoming congested or overwhelming.
The Balmung Bass creates a slightly less deep soundscape but remains full and textural. With an energetic tonality compared to its Fender counterpart, its tone carries well on more complex tracks like those around 3:00 mark in “Why So Serious?”.