Lauren Bateman presents a beginner-friendly guitar lesson for a simplified three-chord arrangement of "Sweet Home Alabama" (D, C, G). She explains the chord progression (D for two beats, C for two beats, G for four beats), demonstrates a basic strum (all down or down-down-up) for verses, and a quicker muted down-stroke pattern for the chorus. The video includes a play-through of verse+chorus and an optional 16th-note strumming pattern (down, down, down, up) for more advanced players.
Chapters
Don't need him around anyhow.
Sweet home Alabama.
Where the skies are so blue.
Sweet home Alabama.
But I'm coming home to you.
Hello, guitar enthusiasts, and welcome to my very, very simple version of Sweet Home Alabama. So I'm going to be doing it a little bit different than I played in the intro. So we're going to take this song, make it super simple so that you can play along. So the reason I like this song is that it's three chords that repeat over and over again. So it's the same chord progression from the beginning of the song all the way to the end. Perfect. Right? So the three chords we're going to use are D, C and G. Three chords. All right, and that's it. You play them for the entire song in that order. Now, there's only one thing that changes during the chorus, and we'll talk about that, but first, let's talk about the verses and how we're going to play them. So if you need to go and download this court chart, just go to my website, laurenbateman.com and you can download the chord chart there. And when we start the song, the D and the C chords split a measure. So. So that means the D chord is played for two beats and the C chord is played for two beats, and then our G chord is played for a full measure or four beats. So if I play it, it's going to be D1, 2, C1, 2, and then G1, 2, 3, 4. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to show you the very, very simple way to play this. And then at the end, I'll show you a little bit more of an advanced strumming pattern that you can use if you want to spice it up a little bit. But for now, we're just going to use all down strums for this song. Or maybe we'll spice it up just a little bit. We'll use a down, down, up.
So it'll be down, down, up, down, down, up. Down, down, up. Down, down, up.
So when we're playing the chords, you.
Would play D down, down, up.
Then you would switch to C. Down, down. And then when you get to G, you would play that twice.
Down, down, up. Down, down, up.
So if I do that again, we go back to D. Down, down, up.
Switch to C. Down, down, up, switch to G. Down, down, up, down, down, up.
Very simple, right? All right, so that's what we're going to play on our verses of this song. When we get to the chorus and We've got these very quick little eighth note strumming patterns, and we're just going to play them as downs. And hopefully you know this song well enough so you don't have to worry about counting it. But it's going to be.
So we're basically going down, down. And I'm putting my right hand on the strings to mute. You don't have to do that. You can just.
So it's just.
So it's 1 and 2 and 3.
And 4, and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4.
And so it's very, very quick.
Down, down, down, down. And then 1, 2, 3, 4. Down, down, down, down. 1, 2 and 3, 4. And.
And that's how we're going to play our chorus. So let me go through that again. So we'll start with the D chord, and it's going to be 1, 1, and 2. And. And then we're gonna switch to C chord, 3 and 4.
And.
And then we're gonna go to a G chord and do the regular strum we were doing before.
1, 2, and 3, 4. And.
And again, if you're keeping it really simple, don't worry about the up strums.
So those are the two sections that this song alternates between. The great thing, like I said, is the chord progression never changes. So if you just practice switching your chords between D and C, C and G, and then G back to D, you'll be all set for the song. So I'm going to take this from. This is a pretty long song. I'm going to take the first section and I'm just going to play from. Well, I heard Mr. Young sing about her. And I'm gonna play through that through one chorus just so that you can hear how the song sounds with the strumming. And I'm gonna do that down, down, up strumming pattern. If you can't do the ups, don't worry about it. Just do the downs. All right, Here we go. 1, 2, 3, 4.
Heard Mr. Young sing about her.
Well, I heard, O'. Neill.
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember.
Our Southern mayor doesn't want him around anyhow.
Sweet home Alabama.
Where the skies are so blue.
Sweet home Alabama.
Lord, I'm coming home to you.
And there you have it. Now, remember, this is just the super, super simple, easy version of playing this song. This doesn't have all the fancy electric guitar part and lead parts. This song is actually fairly complicated. If you really, really want to get into making it sound like the actual studio version. But this is a great starter version if you just really like the song and want to play along with it. So what I'm going to show you is one other different strumming pattern. It's a 16th note pattern that you could do if you wanted to spice it up a little bit. So the strumming pattern, if I go to a D chord, would be down, down, down, up.
One, two, and up, down, down, down, up.
One more time.
Down, down, down, up.
So you would play that on D chord.
It would be down, down, down, up.
Then we would go to our C chord.
Down, down, down, up.
And then the G chord, we play it twice.
Down, down, down, up. Down, down, down, up. So it would be 1, 2 and.
A 3, 4, and a 1, 2 and a 3, four, and a 1, 2 and A 3, 4, and a 1st, 2 and a 3, 4th, and.
A 1, 2 and the 3, 4.
And a 1th, 2 and a 3, 4nd, and A.
Now, if you haven't delved much into 16th notes yet, that might be a little bit tricky for you, so you can just stick with the simpler patterns. Now, for the chorus part, you would just still play those. Those two downs.
Down, down, down, up, down, down, down, up.
And then you would just go right back into it. So that's how you would spice up this song a little bit if you wanted to spice it up. But that is Sweet Home Alabama, the super, super simple, easy version of Sweet Home Alabama. So don' on this video because it's not like the studio version. That was not the point of this video. So go along, practice this song. It's a great song because it's only three chords. D, C and G. Just three chords over and over again. Very simple to learn and it's actually a super fun song to play along with. So go home, have fun, practice hard, and I'll see you in the next lesson.
