“Tennessee Whiskey,” composed by Dean Dillon and Linda Hargrove and originally recorded by country music artist David Allan Coe in 1981, features an easy chord progression and rhythm pattern which makes the song suitable for playing on an acoustic guitar.
This song requires only two chords: A major and B minor. You can adapt its performance based on your skill level by employing various strumming patterns for optimal playing experience.
Basic Chord Shapes
The guitar stands out among other instruments due to its ability to simultaneously play multiple notes at once. This gives it the unique capability of creating chords – groups of notes played together at specific intervals that create their sound; for instance, you could form three or more simultaneous notes using an easy scale to form chords.
As our first chord shape of consideration is the C major chord, to create it you should place your ring finger on the third fret of the D string; middle finger on second fret of G string; index finger on first fret of B string and strumming all strings except low E string until complete chord has formed.
An A minor chord is relatively straightforward to play. To form this chord, place your ring finger on one of the lower strings, your middle finger on another lower string, and your index finger on one of the highest strings; then strumming all strings but for low E.
Alternative Chord Voicings
As part of learning chord shapes, it can be useful to experiment with various voicings to add variety and complexity to your playing. A voicing consists of notes that form each chord; these should usually be placed at specific places on the fretboard where there are natural notes nearby – this helps with voice leading as well as creating fuller sounding chords.
Figure 10 presents an A chord voicing that is slightly higher and more upbeat than its standard E shape counterpart. Add both forms into your playing, and compare how they sound.
Another alternative chord voicing involves taking away the thinnest string from an E shape above to create an A minor bar chord, known as an alternative chord voicing. While playing bar chords may take more practice to perfect, they are well worth practicing! Check out some examples below and gain some understanding.
Chord Progression
No matter how artists may interpret chord progressions and alterations, most popular chord progressions can often be reduced down to some basic structures. Take, for instance, I-IV-V progression – commonly known as 50s progression and found in songs such as Bring Me The Horizon’s Drown and Aerosmith’s Cryin’ as examples of such popular progressions.
How chords are arranged can also have an enormous effect on their tone. Chords crafted using major scale tend to produce happier tones than minor scale chords due to some notes being naturally more harmonic while minor scale chords contain more dissonance.
Chords are typically organized into sets of three or four and identified according to key and scale. This allows musicians to keep track of how each chord relates to the others and create progressions with clear direction. Western classical music commonly employs roman numerals for notating chords based on major scale, while those based on minor scale typically use lower case letters for notation purposes.
Strum Patterns
Long before Chris Stapleton sang about it, Tennessee whiskey was an integral part of life in the Volunteer State. Now, distilleries are opening throughout Tennessee to offer their unique take on this American spirit.
Tennessee whiskey differs from bourbon in that the Lincoln County process filters through maple charcoal before entering an oak barrel for storage, in order to remove sharp substances and soften its flavor.
Jack Daniel’s whiskey, for example, differs from other producers by spelling it without an “e” (as is common in Ireland) to distinguish themselves. There has also been much debate as to whether Tennessee whiskey should be classified as either bourbon or its own distinct category; prior to 2009 when Tennessee revised its prohibition-era laws regarding distillation all whiskey produced there was considered bourbon.
Tennessee was an industry leader long before the Civil War when it came to producing distilled spirits, including whiskey. Although “Tennessee whiskey” may seem vaguely familiar to most people, bourbon can be produced anywhere within the U.S. while Tennessee whiskey requires following Lincoln County’s specific process for production.
Jack Daniel’s is one of the best-known Tennessee whiskies, renowned for its charcoal smoothness. But there are other excellent offerings worth exploring as well.
A Major
Tennessee Whiskey was written by Dean Dillon and Linda Hargrove but best-known through Chris Stapleton’s rendition. With its more adult contemporary sound, his take of Tennessee Whiskey appealed to new generations of country music fans. David Allan Coe first recorded it back in 1981 before George Jones took it up in 1984.
Musically speaking, A Major is an unusual key with three sharps; thus making symphonies written in it less frequent than ones composed in keys with less sharps, such as D or G major. Yet A Major can still be found throughout musical literature such as Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 or Bruckner’s Symphony No. 6.
This song’s chord progression is extremely straightforward: only two major and minor chords are used throughout its entirety with occasional embellishment chords (called D/A in Nashville numbering) being added for embellishment. While this song may be simple to learn and play, practice should still be put in to maintain rhythm properly.
B Minor
Once you have mastered some basic open chords, it is time to move onto more difficult ones. The B minor, often referred to as the “barre” chord, provides new challenges for beginners because it requires pressing down simultaneously on multiple strings – something which may prove physically demanding for those unaccustomed to this shape.
Frustrating this chord requires fretting it with enough of your index finger touching the low E string for it to mute, making the chord sound fuller and more pronounced. Play slowly and carefully so all notes ring out evenly; with practice this chord should become part of your guitar-playing routine. B minor chord is also great for transitions between chords – helping develop musical ear skills as well as finger independence and precision.
C Major
The C major scale contains all of the notes necessary for creating an array of chords, making this chart very helpful in showing finger position on fretboard, intervals, scale degrees and diatonic chords.
C Major’s chords and scale combine perfect, minor, and major intervals without needing sharps or flats – unlike other key signatures which do require these features.
We will explore Chris Stapleton’s song Tennessee Whiskey as part of this lesson. It is a relaxing country tune which can be played in multiple keys; George Jones sang it in G flat for more traditional country sound while Stapleton has more contemporary country influence and sounds good in Bm as well. I will show you both an A chord version as well as bar chord version to help learn other songs with different key signatures more efficiently.
D Major
Chris Stapleton’s Tennessee Whiskey by playing its acoustic guitar part in D Major. Like C Major chords, but with one extra note added in its scale. This tonic gives each chord its full sound – giving an unforgettable and satisfying aural experience. D Major can also be played differently called inversions to reduce finger movement between chords on a keyboard keyboard.
Cadences can help you quickly decipher the key of any song by studying melodic or chord progressions that lead to rest or resolution, or by employing solfege which assigns each note a unique syllable in order to easily recall their order in any particular key.