Chris Stapleton’s country song Tennessee Whiskey features elements from both rock and soul music in an otherwise traditional country tune, making for one of his greatest hits ever. It has since become one of his biggest selling records.
This song utilizes simple chords and offers a moderate tempo that is beginner friendly. Practice this easy country guitar song until you are confident enough to tackle more advanced tunes.
1. C Major
C Major is often used as the starting point when learning guitar chords. As its first position of a major scale, it can be played across two octaves and has an intimate connection with A Minor scales; understanding this relationship is vitally important.
Major chords are built from notes in a scale and can be transposed up or down an octave without altering their sound, making it easy to switch from chord to chord while playing songs. Furthermore, using any major chord in this progression and it will always sound in key – great news for beginner guitarists as the chord progression and strumming pattern are simple while the song features a catchy tune which should make learning it enjoyable!
2. D Major
One of the most iconic country songs ever written, this piece is simple for beginners to pick up. It includes basic chords as well as fingerpicking that provides a fun challenge while building grip strength.
The open position D major chord is one of the cornerstones of guitar playing and should form part of your repertoire. To create it, stack three thirds from each note in D (F#-A-D). This produces a triad chord.
This song’s slow tempo makes it an excellent beginner song to learn, especially if you want to practice strumming technique and introduces you to an arpeggio that you can master later in your music studies.
3. E Major
This song offers many layers and fingerpicked passages for you to play along with. Depending on your skill level or desired level of involvement with this piece, you can select which parts you wish to learn or cover.
E Major is an ideal key for players of any skill level to explore due to its range of chords and melodies available in this key. E Major can serve as an effective starting point when creating major scales, arpeggios or diatonic chords.
Beginners can learn to play E Major’s first enclosure by following this pattern. Keep in mind that these arrangements only cover one octave of scale; as your skills advance, transposing these forms onto other parts of the fretboard will become necessary.
4. G Major
G Major chord is one of the most versatile to play. This chord can be heard in country, rock and classical music – making it accessible for beginners guitarists to learn and read quickly. Furthermore, its single sharp note (F#) makes learning this chord simple.
This song utilizes open chords and provides a fantastic opportunity for practicing quickly switching between chords with or without using a capo, as well as teaching beginners basic strumming techniques. Furthermore, this song gives beginners an introduction to both G Major chords and CAGED patterns, with only one full octave of scale being supported at once using these patterns – giving a good introduction before progressing onto more difficult songs!
5. A Major
Tennessee Whiskey features a wonderful short riff between verses that’s an ideal practice opportunity for beginner guitarists – it doesn’t require too much chord knowledge either!
This song’s riff uses an E Major chord – one of the first chords most guitarists learn – with D minor used as an additional embellishment chord.
Tablature is a way of reading music for the guitar that shows which fingers should fret each note, with occasional notations such as “p,” which indicate pulling off notes with your fretting hand.
If you see an “/”, this indicates moving the neck upward toward the bridge using either your first finger or ring finger as you see fit.