John Denver Country Roads Guitar Lesson FINGERSTYLE

Hey, guitar enthusiast. Lauren Bateman here. And we're going to be doing a John Denver song called Country Roads. Except this version. I'm going to be doing the finger picking version of this song. So let's get into it.

Now, some of you might already know I did the easy version with the strumming earlier, but I had a lot of YouTubers who are like, hey, can you do a finger picking version of this song as well? So here you go. If you have a request for a song, put it below. And you never know when I'm going to do your song on YouTube. So let's get into the lesson. So let's talk about the chords first for Country Roads. And if you need a chord chart for this, just go to laurenbateman.com I'll put a link in the description below. If you need some lyrics and chords, you can go to my website and follow along there. Now, the chords we're going to be using are all open chords. My four favorite beginner chords, G, C, E minor and D. And when we get to the bridge, we do some different chords there. But we'll talk about that when we discuss the bridge section later. So let's get started with our verse. So the chord progression for our verse, we have two GS, two E minors, two Ds, a C and a G. If you're looking at my chord chart and what I'm going to do for this first pattern, timing wise is we're going to do a bass pluck pattern and we're going to do it on quarter notes. Okay. Just so it goes along with my, my chord chart because I think the chart goes a little bit better with the intermediate picking pattern. I'm going to show you a little bit later in this section. So what we're going to do is do a bass pluck. Okay. It's going to sound like this. Think of like yesterday.

So it's bass pluck, bass pluck, bass pluck. And what I'm doing is I'm playing a bass note with my thumb and then I'm plucking up. I'm pulling up on the bottom three strings with these three fingers. My first, second and third finger. So my first finger is on my third string, second finger is on my second string, and third finger is on the bottom three strings. And those fingers never move these. The only finger that's going to be changing is our thumb depending on what chord we're playing. So for example, in this song we play a G chord. Our bass note will be the Sixth string. The same for E minor. It will also be the sixth string because those are six string chords. And the lowest note, the lowest bass note, is the sixth string. When we get to our C chord, our thumb is going to have to move down to our fifth string. And when we get to our D chord, our thumb is going to have to move to our fourth string. Okay, so what we're going to be doing when we play our G chord, it's going to sound like this.

Bass pluck, bass pluck, bass pluck, bass pluck. And then E minor, bass pluck, bass pluck, bass pluck, bass pluck, KC Bass pluck, bass pluck, bass pluck, bass pluck. And D.

Okay, now for this picking pattern, like I said, we're going to do quarter notes so that it lines up with my chord chart. So it'll be 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4.

1, 2, 3, 4.— 1, 2, 3, 4.

1, 2, 3, 4.

1, 4, 2, 3, 4.

One, two, three, four. All right.

Life is older than E minor.

Now the D and the mountains blowing like a breeze.

Do you hear that? So it's just a very simple bass pluck pattern. Nothing special. Very, very simple way to finger pick this song. And you can do the same thing on the chorus. The only thing is that the chord progression changes. So on the chorus we have double G, double D, double E minor, double C. Again, double G, double D, double C, double G. So the chorus is.

Going to be country road.

Take me.

Home.

To the place.

Where I belong.

Okay, now we have West Virginia, Virginia.

Mama.

Take me home.

Country roads.

It's all you're gonna do for the entire song, even when we get to the bridge later. But before we get to that bridge part, I'm gonna show you a little bit more of an intermediate finger picking pattern that you can do on this song. And this is usually how I will finger pick country roads. So let's check it out. If you're liking this video and you haven't subscribed to the channel yet, I highly encourage you to subscribe now and turn your notifications on so you know when I release more videos just like this one. So this pattern I'm going to show you has a little bit more of an alternating baseline. So the last pattern we have, we just stayed on one base note, right? Well, now I'm going to be alternating, but I'm going to show you a picking pattern very quickly. I'll go through. This is called Travis picking. It's a very common picking pattern. If you want a more detailed video on how to do Travis picking, I'll put a video link up here to show you guys. So what we're going to do is the thumb is going to be alternating between two bass lines. Okay. So for the G and the E strings or sorry, the G and the E chords, it's going to be going 6, 4, 6, 46 4, 6, 4. Okay. For a C chord it's going to be going 5, 4, 5, 4 5, 4, 5, 4. And the D chord, the thumb is going to be going 4, 3, 4, 3 4, 3, 4, 3. Okay, so let's talk about this pattern. This is going to be an eighth note picking pattern. So we'll be doing 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And it will be the timing and I'm going to show you exactly how it lands. So the first part, let's talk about our G, our fingers. The bottom three fingers are still staying put, but the only ones we're going to need to really worry about are the first two fingers. So the first finger is going to be playing the G string. The second finger is going to be playing the B string and it never moves. Okay. And I will go in for a close up on this picking pattern. So just stick around if you're confused. I'll be going in for a close up shortly. So we're going to start with one which is the sixth string. On the G it's going to be one and then the next bass note two. Okay. Bass, bass and then the first finger.

So it's thumb, thumb one, thumb, thumb one, thumb, thumb, thumb one.

Alright, that's the first half of the pattern. The second half is going to be.

Thumb two, thumb one.

Thumb two, thumb one.

Remember we're alternating the bass every time.

Thumb two, thumb one.

So it's going to be sixth string, fourth string, first finger, sixth string, second finger, fourth string, first finger, thumb, thumb.

One, thumb two, Thumb one, thumb, thumb one, thumb 2, thumb one.

And you would do the same thing.

On E minor, thumb, thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1.

Now the C chord, where things get different. So now the thumb is going to be alternating between 5 and 4. So it's going to be 5, 4 for the string.

So thumb, thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1.

Okay.

3, thumb 2, thumb 1.

So it's 5, 4, first finger 5, second finger 4, first finger, thumb, thumb.

1, thumb 2nd, thumb 1.

And the timing is 1, 2 and.

3 and 4 and 1, 2 and 3 and four and one, two and three and four and all right.

And then the last one is D. We're going to have to shift our whole hand down. Our thumb is now going to be alternating between the fourth string and the third string. Our first finger is now on the second string, second finger is on the first string. So it's going to be.

Thumb, thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1, thumb, thumb 1, thumb 2nd, thumb 1.

All right, so that is our first Travis picking pattern. Let me go in for a little bit of a close up to show you guys before I demonstrate this on the song. Alright, so here I am with my guitar and here's what it's going to be looking like.

It's going to be thumb, thumb, one.

Okay.

Thumb, thumb 1, 6, 4, 1.

And then the outside strings, thumb 2.

The inside strings, thumb 1, thumb, thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1.

That's the G chord. The C chord is going to be.

Fifth string and fourth string, thumb, thumb one, thumb two, thumb one, thumb, thumb one, thumb 2, thumb one.

And then the D string we're going to shift our whole hand down.

Thumb, thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1, thumb, thumb 1, thumb 2, Thumb 1.

So all together.

Now. If you're confused by this like I said again, go check out that earlier lesson on Travis picking. I'm going to do a demonstration here but if you need a little bit more of an in depth thorough Travis picking lesson, pause this video, go check that one and then come back here. So this is what it's going to sound like before we get and discuss our bridge section. So it'll be.

Hear it on the verse.

West Virginia.

Blue Ridge Mountain Hear it. So beautiful Life is old there Older than the trees.

Younger than the mountains Blowing like a breeze country roads take me home.

To the place you can hear it I belong.

Where so West Virginia Mountain mama.

Take me home.

Control.

So there you go. Country road sounds. See it sounds so much better that way. I think it's absolutely beautiful to be played with the Travis picking. So now let's talk about what's going to happen in the bridge here and what we're going to be doing there. So John does some really cool music theory stuff here in this bridge. We're actually going to change keys for a brief moment and then come back out. A lot of the chords are the same so it's E minor, D, double G, then C, G double D and then we have, here's where the change comes. We have an E minor, then all of a sudden we have this F bar chord that pops in. F bar chord then we have C, G double D and double D7 and this D7 is very important because it helps us transition back to the original key of the song without it sounding too weird. Alright, so the bridge, if I play through it, I'm gonna do the Travis picking so you guys can hear it. It's gonna sound like this.

I hear her voice in the morning hours she calls to me Radio reminds me of my home far away and driving down the road I get a feeling should have been home Yesterday here's.

The D7 today.

Country roads.

And when I perform, I like to just strum that D7, kind of let it hold out the tension of that seven note. When you go back to that G. Sounds so beautiful. It's a music theory thing, but it is. It's phenomenal. Sounds great every time. So there you go. That is how to finger pick John Denver's Country Roads. Hope you enjoyed the lesson. Don't forget to like the video. If you had a Fun time here, YouTube's gonna pop up a couple more videos over there. Make sure to go check those out. And I hope to see you guys in another lesson video.