Tennessee Whiskey Guitar Tutorial

Your love is true.

Like Tennessee whiskey.

You're the ski.

The storm.

Everyone.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to my tutorial on Chris Stapleton's Tennessee Whiskey. I'm going to break this down and simplify it as much as possible for you. So I'm not going to do super fancy strumming in this video. I'm going to show you kind of two easier versions that you can do. Now, the great thing about this song is the chord progression is the same thing over and over again. So it's an A chord followed by a B minor chord, followed by a D chord and followed by an A chord. If you need to get the chord chart to follow along, there's a link below the video where you can go on my website and download the chord chart with the strumming suggestions as well. So, like I said, there's three chords and one of them is a B minor chord, which of course is a bar chord. And if you can't do bar chords just yet, that's okay. You can use an easy version of a B minor chord, which is basically just playing the bottom three strings. So be your first finger on the second fret of the bottom string, your second finger on the second string third fret, and your third finger on the fourth fret of the third string. So it's not going to sound as nice as the full.

But it'll work.

If you don't quite have the B minor bar chord down yet. If you do fantastic, use the whole thing. If you can't, you can use the simple version of the B minor chord. Now, this song is in what we call six, eight time. It's not in your typical four, four. So a lot of songs that you've probably done, you count to four. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3,4. 1, 2, 3, four. Well, this song is a little bit more of that waltz feel. So we feel like we can swing and sway along to the music. So we're going to count to six instead of four. So it's going to be 1, 2.

3, 4, 5, 6.

1, 2, 3, 4th, 5, 6. 1, two, three, four, five, six. And that's going to be a full measure. So a measure of music are the individual blocks of music. And each chord is going to be two measures. So we're going to count to six twice for each chord for the entire section of this song. So the very, very easy strumming pattern that we're going to do in the beginning here only requires you to sum 20 twice. Okay, you're going to strum on the one beat and you're going to strum on THE FOUR BEAT. So it'll sound like this. If we start with just the A major chord, we're going to do a soft strum on one and then on four we're going to do a much louder strum. Give a little bit of dynamics. If you can't do soft and loud just yet, don't worry about it. The most important part is that you're strumming on the 1 and the 4. So let's just try that simplified pattern first. So it's going to be one, two.

Three, four, five, six. One, two, three, four, Five, six. One, two, Three, four, five, six. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1, 2, 3, four, 5, 6. 1, two, 3, four, 5, six. 1, 2, three, four, five, Six.

And we're gonna do that for each of the chords.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1, 2, 3, four, five, six.

Then B minor, the same thing.

1, 2, 3, Four, five, six. 1, two, three, four, five, six. And then the D. 1, 2, 3,4, 5, 6. 1, two, three, Four, five, six. Then back to A 4, 5, 6. 1st, 2, 3, 4, five, six.

So that is the very simplified strumming pattern for this song. Alright, that's as easy as it gets with it still being and sounding like Tennessee Whiskey. Now I'm going to show you a couple. Well, I'm going to show you one more pattern that's a little bit further beyond that. It's not much more complicated. And all we're going to do is we're going to strum for every single beat. But we're still going to accent the four. So it's going to sound like this.

It's going to be one, two, three, four, five, six. One, two, three, four, five, six.

One.

So what I'm doing is on everything except for the fourth beat, I'm kind of just getting the top. I'm not strumming the whole chord, just kind of getting the top two or three strings.

And I'm playing it very soft. 1, 2, 3.

And then when 44 comes around, I'm hitting it hard and getting these treble notes on the bottom so it sounds a little bit different.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1, 2, 3, four, five, six. 1, 4, 5, 6. One, two, three, four, five, six. One, two, three, Four, five, six. One, 2, three, four, five, Six. One, two, three, 4, five, six. 1, 2, three, four, Five, six.

So it's not that much more difficult, but your chord changes have to be that much faster for you to be able to do this. Now, in the beginning, you probably heard me do a little lead in, which was.

That's how the song starts. So there's a whole solo.

That he does. We're just going to talk about the first three notes. So it's a little lead in to the song. So we're going to play the open string or the top E string open. Not the open string. The top E string is going to be played open. So that is your fat string on your guitar. So we're going to play it open and then we're going to play the second fret.

Yep. Second fret on the top string. So it's open. Second fret. Play that with your first finger. Open a string. So fifth string open. So it's going to be open top string, second fret on the top string. Open, fifth string. So if I play that again. Open, two, open. One more time. Open, two, open. And then we're going to strum A.

So it's four, five, six, one.

Again.

Four, five, six, one. Two more times. Four, five, six, one. And the last time. Four, four, five, six, one.

And that's when you would start going into the entire song. It only does that once in the very, very beginning of the song. It's a very cool thing that you can add in, but you don't have to if you. If it's a little bit too difficult for you.

But again, it's 4, 5, 6.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1e, 2, 3, 4, five, six. B minor. 4, 5, 6. 1de, 2, 3, 4, Five, six, and.

So forth and so on. There's one other little tricky thing that I'm going to show you to kind of spice this up just a little bit more, if you are interested. So there's two A's in this song. There's the first two measures of A, then there's two measures of B minor, then there's two measures of D. And then there's this really special A where something different happens to kind of change it from the first A. And if you listen to the song, he does this almost every time. So I'm going to give you a simplified version. So you probably heard me. If I'm going from D. One, two.

Three, four, five, six. One, two, three, 4, 5, 6. One, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5.

I'm messing it up.

One, two, three, Four, five, six. One, 2, 3, four, 5, 6, 1. One, two, three, fourth, five, six, one.

There it is. See, I even make mistakes. It's okay if you make mistakes. You just play through them. Right? So what we're going to do is we're going to play the full two measures of D. When we come to the A, the first measure we're going.

To play 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

And on 6, we're going to play very quickly we're going to switch to D6. And then we're going to go back to A on 1 1.

So it's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1, 2, 3, 4,. 5, 6.

So that's that second A. I'll do that again.

So it's 1, 2nd, 3, 4, 5, six. 1, 2, 3, four, five, five, six.

So if I play that from the D chord.

1, 2, 3,4, 5, 6.

1, two, three, four, five, six. 1, 2, three, four, five, 6.

One.

And then you would finish out the measure. So we're changing to d on the five or sorry, on the six. Very quickly.

One, two, three, four, five, six, six. One, two, three, Four, five, six.

Let's do it one more time.

One, two, three, 4, 5, 6. One, two, 3, 4, 5, 6.

So I'm going to go through the whole pattern using the whole chord progression. Using that. I guess we'll call it the six, eight, five.

Full strum.

So it's going to be one, two.

Three, four, five, six. One, two, three, four, 5, 6. One, two, three, 4, 5, 6. One, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1, 2, 3, four, 5, 6. 1, two, 3, 4, 5, six, four. 1, 2, 3, 4, five, six. 1, two, 3, four, five, six. 1, 2, 3,4, 5, 6.

And again.

One, two, three, Four, five, six. One, 2, 3, four, five, 6. One, two, 3, 4, five, 6. Two, three, four, five, Six. One, two, 3, four, Five, six. One, two, 3, Four, five, six.

1, Two, 3, four, five, Six.

1, Two, 3, Four, five, Six.

And that's it. That's the entire song. You play that from beginning to end, it does not change at all. It's a great song. In terms of the simplicity. The only thing that adds a little bit more of an intermediate level is the quick change that we have from the A to D and this B minor chord. I consider bar chords an intermediate skill. So that's why this song is a little bit more intermediate. And it's also in the 6, 8. And a lot of people aren't usually used to working in six, eight time. So I hope you guys enjoyed this lesson. Again, if you need the chord progression and the chord chart, there's a link below this video and you can click on that or copy that into your web browser and you can print the chord chart for this song. Hope you guys have a great day, and I'll see you in the next lesson.