If you’re an aspiring country guitarist, there are a few chords you need to learn. You don’t have to be the best guitar player in the world when you’re just beginning your journey. [Gm G C F Bb] Chords for Luke Bryan - What Makes You Country (Official Audio) with capo transposer, play along with guitar, piano, ukulele & mandolin. Today we’re going to introduce you to the genre founded on the simplest and most common chord progression in Western music: I-IV-V-I. (function() { Remember the steps: W-W-H-W-W-W-H for the major scale, and W-H-W-W-H-W-W for the minor scale. When you build a major triad over these four notes, you get the four chords of the I-III-V-Vii chord progression. C                             G  G7                       C (The place where he    was born and bred), If I were a sinner, tell you what I would do–. When you’re learning chords, memorize the finger placement so you don’t have to refer back to the diagrams. For lack of space, we’ve only included the first verse and chorus of each song, but the rest of the lyrics are easy to find online. It also uses the dominant 7th chords. All contents are subject to copyright, provided for educational and personal noncommercial use only. var opts = { Learn how your comment data is processed. It’s mostly in Old Time music that we find that “high, lonesome sound” often referred to when talking about the most haunting of country songs, that strange modality that makes you think of a strong wind moaning through the pines near a narrow mountain pass or the howling of wolves in dark hollers. They can do amazing solos. I’m workin’ on a buildin’ for my Lord, for my Lord. One easy way to do this is when you have a repeat of chords for a few bars, change one of the bars to the dominant seventh version of the chord you’re playing. [Gm G C F Bb] Chords for Luke Bryan - What Makes You Country (Official Audio) with capo transposer, play along with guitar, piano, ukulele & mandolin. The composer usually repeats the same progression twice, then adds eight bars of a different progression, and then repeats the first progression. A chord progression is simply the series of chords you play to go along with a tune, and as we’ve already explained in earlier articles, the chord progression is one of the musical elements that give a genre its special sound, setting it apart from the others. (As in rock music, the 7 or VII chord is rarely used in country chord progressions.). You know you gotta let it out [Chorus 1] I got my d G irt road cred back when I was 12 On a no-c F ab tractor hauling in bales B C acking in boats, fishing limb-lines G Running bird dogs through the Geor C gia pines G Step side cover down in peanut dust F F riday night spotlight, that was us It might C not've been you, but I ain't judging C Just be proud of what makes you cou G ntry F C G F Country guitar playing stretches back as far as most people can recall. (If you’re not familiar with the sound of real old time music, have a listen to some of the samples in this Folkways page.). The southern states where bluegrass originated often sheltered escaped and later freed black slaves in the mountains, where their influence on the folk music there eventually became a component of bluegrass. song: "What Makes You Country", You don’t have to be rich or educated or high class to master country music. To top it all off, most of the tunes are limited to the major keys G, A, C, D, E, and F, and because all of the chords in the I-IV-V-I (1-4-5-1 in Nashville) progression are major, there are no minor chords in the basic structure. If you’re an aspiring country guitarist, there are a few chords you need to learn. Country music also avoids other musical innovations such as bridges with key changes in the middle of a song, as well as adding “extra” notes to a basic triadic chord: A G7 is pretty much the norm, but 6th, 9th, and 13th chords are definitely out. “Check Yes or No,” by George Strait, uses a I-IV-V chord progression in the key of D. The D-G-A pattern repeats throughout the song. There may be other reasons to think ill of country songs (depressing lyrics, whining vocals, and hideous outfits topping the list), musical simplicity is not one of them. That being said, Roman numerals aren’t used in this way by Nashville musicians, who use the more common Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, etc.). These chords are used in thousands of popular, well-known country songs. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. The most common chords we’ll be using in country music are the I, IV and V chords, which are all major chords, which are all major chords. You can make up tons of different progressions with the 12 essential chords. It predates most modern styles of playing and shares most similarities with blues and rock and roll than most people even realize. When it comes to playing country music, there are 12 essential chords that you need to master. You can use any rhythm when you play. The strict chord formula allowed each musician in a four or five piece bluegrass band (always consisting of guitar, bass, and banjo and sometimes also fiddle, mandolin, drums, and steel guitar) to play rhapsodic trills and ecstatic runs, making it all come together brilliantly. Use the E major scale, lift the tonic (E), third (G#), fifth (B), and the seventh note (D#). Use the first, third, fifth, and now, the seventh note. He is currently earning a degree in music theory. Let’s look at the C major chord as an example. Welcome to another episode in our “Chord Progressions” series! It’s not uncommon to throw in a minor VI chord for some texture or even to change the dynamic of a section. Thanks again, Johnny— there’s no better time for this song than right now. Scotty McCreery - Five More Minutes (Official Video), Keith Urban - Raise 'Em Up ft. Eric Church (Official Music Video), Adele - When We Were Young (Live at The Church Studios), Alan Jackson - Tonight I Climbed The Wall, Live Like You Were Dying - Tim McGraw with lyrics, David Lee Murphy & Kenny Chesney - Everything's Gonna Be Alright (Audio), Jordan Rager - Now That I Know Your Name (Lyric Video), Whitney Houston - I Will Always Love You LIVE 1999 Best Quality, Granger Smith - Backroad Song (Lyric Video), Chase Rice - Everybody We Know Does (Audio), BackStreet Boys & New Kids On The Block = NKOTBSB (Performance In American Music Awards 2010), Kelsea Ballerini - Legends (Official Music Video), Luke Bryan - You Look Like Rain (Official Lyric Video), Darius Rucker - For The First Time (Audio), Imagine Dragons - On Top Of The World (Official Music Video), Eric Church - Like Jesus Does (Official Acoustic Video), Lynyrd Skynyrd - Sweet Home Alabama (Live At The Florida Theatre / 2015), Florida Georgia Line - Summerland (Static Version), Show the world what you are playing with ChordU. Playing these progressions will help you transition from chord to chord. Sign up for convenient, affordable private lessons today! Your email address will not be published. To choose our chords, we first need to figure out the notes of the major scale in that key: From this, we can see the primary chords we want to target are C, F, G, and A. Remembering the formula of which notes should be major/minor, we end up with: C major, F major, G major, and A minor. It consists of natural notes (no sharps or flats). It goes between the I and V chord for the first 4 bars before moving to the IV and min VI chords for bars 5 and 6, respectively, and ending on the I and V for bars 7 and 8. If you do find a minor chord in a country progression, it’s almost always a VI (6). Luke Bryan - What Makes You Country (Guitar Cover) - YouTube One common progression you see in country music is the I-IV-V progression. 31,704 views, added to favorites 210 times. To start building our country progressions, we first need to decide what key we are playing in; then we need to use a simple formula based on the major scale of that particular key. One of the best things about country music is the way it uses plain language to express timeless truths. Whatever key you play in, if you choose your I, IV and V chords, you can get an instant country flavor. Zachary A. is a guitar instructor in Katy, TX specializing in beginning and intermediate students. He works as a session guitarist, plays with a number of live bands, writes for various high-profile guitar publications and works daily with his own music students to develop their skills and careers. For the following three examples, we still stick to a simple strumming pattern. Dude this was some super useful info. Start out slow, and then pick up the tempo. First, take the first, third, and fifth notes from the desired scale. Within this narrow form, a surprising amount of musical invention emerged. Learn more about Zachary here! Think Johnny Cash style country for this. Luke Bryan - What Makes You Country (Guitar Cover) - YouTube Chords for Luke Bryan - What Makes You Country (Official Audio). Time for action. Another delightful innovation in bluegrass is the use of the five-string banjo, an instrument granted more freedom than any other instrument in bluegrass bands (possibly because of its loudness). Bluegrass is a relatively new phenomenon in American music, having been almost singlehandedly created by Bill Monroe in Kentucky in the 1940’s. Now let’s look at the basic music theory behind country music. For this lesson, we’ll talk about the key of C major. The min VI chord takes the same groupings of chords but adds a somber overtone. Some country hits, such as Johnny Cash and June Carter’s “Jackson”, not only use the I-IV-V progression, but they also follow a 12-bar blues eyes style progression in the key of C. Country artists often add a min VI chord from their chosen key for contrast. This is an example of how the min VI chord can be used to change up a progression. Playing a series of chords in a progression is the most efficient way to memorize chords. This is an example of how you can your I-IV-V chords and create a 12-bar country style loop. © Low Group Inc. dba Guitar Girl Magazine® 2020. I’d quit my sinnin,’ and I’d work on a buildin’, too. Because of this availability to the poor, marginalised rural folk, country music traditionally has given voice to the emotional authenticity that only such people can bring. One thing worth trying is fingerpicking through the chords as you run the progression. Some musical genres like to be different and challenge this established pattern, but with a few exceptions country music sticks pretty close to this arrangement. Bluegrass banjo players can choose from a host of banjo tunings in order to change the mood of song. Robert Frost, when asked why he stuck to rules of grammar, rhythm, and rhyme in his poetry, confessed, “I like to play tennis with the net up.” Sometimes it takes challenging limitations to bring out the best in art, which is why country music has produced some of the greatest guitar players of all time. Old time music isn’t held to the same restrictions as bluegrass or commercial country music because of some stranger elements that the other two subgenres later weeded out, but the basic I-IV-V-I structure was its bedrock. Before you look down your nose at country music for being too musically simple, think again.