In this YouTube lesson Lauren Bateman teaches a Travis‑style fingerpicking arrangement for John Denver’s “Country Roads.” She begins by listing the chord set (G, Em, C, D for verses; D7 and a one‑measure F or Fmaj7 for the bridge) and notes substitutions for beginners. The core of the lesson is a simple 8‑note Travis picking pattern that alternates bass notes on the low strings (6‑4 for 6‑string chords, 5‑4 for 5‑string chords, 4‑3 for 4‑string chords) while the thumb handles the bass and the index and middle fingers pluck the G and B strings (or B and high‑E for D chords). She demonstrates how the treble notes fall on the “and” of each beat, builds the full pattern for each chord, and shows how to adjust finger placement for the D chord. After practicing the basic pattern on a G‑C‑D progression, she adds a “spice” variation using the ring finger on the high‑E string (thumb‑thumb‑1‑thumb‑3‑thumb‑1). She then walks through a slow verse, adds the bridge, and performs a full‑speed playthrough, encouraging viewers to slow the video if needed. Throughout, she offers pedagogical advice: the lesson isn’t for absolute beginners, references a strumming version for newcomers, promotes her Fingerpicking 101 course, and normalises mistakes, urging learners to keep timing and keep playing.
Chapters
Hey guitar enthusiasts, Lauren Bateman here. I have an absolutely amazing song by John Denver called Country Roads, but I'm going to specifically show you how to fingerpick it to make it sound beautiful, and I'm going to show you how to do it step by step. So let's start off with the chords we're going to be using in this song. So for the most part, we're going to be using simple chords. For the majority of the song, it's the chords G, E minor, C and D. Okay, when we get to the bridge section, there are a couple additional chords, mainly a D7 chord. Okay, and we have one bar chord, we have an F chord. Okay, boo! But if you can't play an F chord, don't worry, you can use the F major 7 chord. It'll get you through. It's only one measure in the song. So if you're like, you see that F chord, do not get nervous. It's okay. You can use F major 7, totally fine. And if you don't know a D7 chord, just play a regular D chord. You'll be perfectly fine for the purposes of this lesson. Now, this lesson is not for absolute beginners due to the fingerpicking component. I do have another lesson on Country Roads that is all strumming that you can check out up there first before trying to learn the fingerpicking version. So first things first is I'm going to show you a very simple picking pattern. Um, it's a Travis picking pattern. It's just an eighth note picking pattern that you can use over lots and lots of songs. So first, let's start off with our main 4 chords that we use for most of the song: G, E minor, C, and D. Okay, so the G and the E minor chords are 6-string chords, the C chord is 5, and the D is 4. And it's very important that you know that because we're gonna change what bass notes we play play depending on how many strings the chords are. So let's start with the G chord. So the most important part of this is the bass, okay? So the bass is going to be our 4-count: 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. And when we switch chords, we're gonna switch to different bass notes, okay? Okay, so for 6-string chords, for our G chord, our E minor chord, Also, our F chord, if you were going to play a bar chord, okay, um, would be alternating between strings 6 and 4, so the E string and the D string, okay? And it'd be 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. So if I put an E minor on, it's going to sound like this: 1, 2, 3, 4. If I put a G chord on, it's going to sound like this, okay? So the bass note is going to change, so it's important important you know. It's string 6 and string 4 for 6-string chords. For a 5-string chord like a C, you're going to be alternating between 5 and 4, okay? And it'd be the same if you were playing like an E minor chord. If you're going to use that F major 7, that's the pattern you would use, okay? So 5 and 4. And then for 4-string chords, you're going to be alternating between the 4th string and the 3rd string. Okay, just with your thumb. So that's what we're going to practice right now. We're just going to practice doing the verse section with the timing, because the timing of this is really the foundation of the rest of the picking pattern. So I'm going to put some lyrics and chords up on the screen for you to follow along with me. Okay, so remember, starting with the G chord, it's alternating between 6 and 4, as well as the E minor chord. Okay, then the D chord would be 3 and 4. And then the C chord is going to be 5 and 4. Okay, so let's take it from the top. Okay, let's just get our timing. So this is about the speed we're gonna go. Okay, remember, it's 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2. Here we go.
Almost heaven, West Virginia, Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River. Life is old there, it's older than the trees, it's younger than the mountains, blowing like a breeze, country roads.
All right, so that kind of gives you the timing of where that bass falls, okay, and with the lyrics and within the song. So now what we're gonna do is we're gonna spice it up by adding a little bit of notes in between the bass. So it's gonna sound more like this if I show you quickly. Okay, so sounds very beautiful now, right? So it's a great picking pattern. So let's break it down. Step by step. Okay, so the bass note, we've already got that down. So we're going to be using the thumb, and which we've been using for the bass notes. And now the treble notes are going to be taken care of by the first finger and the second finger. Okay, and for the most part, on the 5-string chords and the 6-string chords, the first and second finger are going to live on the G string for your first finger and the B string for your second finger. On the D chord, we are going to have to adjust these down so that the first finger is on your B string and your second finger is on your high E string, but we'll talk about that when we get there. Let's start off with the G chord. Okay, nice G chord. Okay, so we have 1, 2, and— all right, that's the first additional note. So it's a bass note, a bass note, and then our first finger is going to pluck that G string. Be thumb, thumb, 1, thumb, thumb, 1. Again, thumb, thumb, 1. So the timing of that is 1, 2, and. All right, so now if you know eighth notes, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and, our treble notes are going to fall on the upbeat or the and. So it's thumb, thumb, 1, or 1, 2, and. So if I put that in the G pattern, okay, so we got 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2 and 3, 4, 1, 2 and 3, 4, 1, 2 and 3, 4, 1, 2 and 3, 4. Okay, so that's where the timing of that note falls. So that's the first half of the pattern, that's the first 2 beats. So it's thumb, thumb, 1. So the second half of the pattern, the second 2 beats, the 3 and 4 and, is going to be thumb, 2, thumb, 1, thumb, 2, thumb, 1, thumb, 2, thumb, 1. Okay, so what is that? So it is thumb on the low E string, your second finger on the B string, and then the thumb on the D string, and your first finger on the G string. So it's 3 and 4 and 3 and 4 and 3 and 4 and thumb 2 thumb 1 thumb 2 thumb 1 thumb 2 thumb 1. So if you put it all together very slowly, it's going to be thumb, thumb, 1, thumb, 2, thumb, 1, thumb, thumb, 1, thumb, 2. Here we go. Okay, so that's the pattern. Thumb, thumb, 1, thumb, 2, thumb, 1. Now if I play a C chord, I'm going to alternate between 5 and 4, so it's going to be thumb, thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1. Nothing changes between my first and second finger here, going from a C chord to a G chord. Where the change comes is right here. So the D chord, we're going to adjust everything down. So now our thumb's alternating on strings 4 and 3, and now my first two fingers have moved down to the B string and the E string, and we have Thumb, thumb, 1, thumb, 2, thumb, 1, thumb, thumb, 1, thumb, 2, thumb, 1. Okay, let's just practice that. We're just gonna do a simple chord progression. We're just gonna go G, C, D for now, and we're gonna do 2 measures of each. So we're gonna play the pattern twice for each chord. We'll start slow. Okay, 1, 2, and 3, and 4, and thumb, thumb, 1, thumb, 2, thumb, 1. To C chord, to D chord, back to the G chord, to C Now the cool thing about learning a pattern like this and getting it up to speed is you can play cool songs like this. So I kind of know, you know, Kansas, that's Dust in the Wind. Another song that you could play using this pattern, it's not the exact pattern, but it will work. Okay. You said that sounds like Landslide. Yeah. You can use it on a song like Landslide. So very cool stuff. These are, these are the kinds of things or this pattern, um, in this type of stuff that I'm teaching in this lesson is stuff that I teach in my Fingerpicking 101 course. I have an entire course on fingerpicking. So if this is something you really, really want to dive into, I'll put a link in the description below. You can go check that out if you're interested. So now we've learned the pattern, so now we want to apply it to the song. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to play through the verse at a much slower pace because we are going to play this a little bit faster and you're probably going to need to practice to get it up to speed. I will do a full playthrough at the end, but for now let's just go very slowly through the verse and we'll incorporate the chorus as well on this one. Nice and slow so you have something to practice. But don't jump away after the playthrough because I'm going to show you an additional little spice that you can add into this to make it sound even cooler, uh, before we do the full playthrough. So let's start from the top. 1, 2, 3, and 4, and almost heaven.
West Virginia, Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River. Life is old there, older than the trees, younger than the mountains. Blowing like a breeze. Country road, take me home to the place I belong. West Virginia. Oh, mountain mama, take me home, country road.
Such a beautiful song. Even at that speed, I think that sounds absolutely lovely. So I told you I was going to show you a little additional spice once you get into learning the pattern, because a lot of these chords are played twice. So on the first iteration or the second iteration, you can do something different. So instead of just playing thumb, thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1, sometimes you can play thumb, thumb 1, thumb 3, thumb 1. Okay, so you can use your ring finger to grab the high E string. So just to show you how this would sound quickly. Okay, so you're gonna hear that extra note come in. So it's— then we're not changing the timing or anything, it's just instead of doing thumb, thumb, 1, thumb, 2, thumb, 1, we're going thumb, thumb, 1, thumb, 3, thumb, 1. Okay, just a little spice if you want to give a little bit more movement.
So like, Country Road, take me home to the place I belong.
Okay, I'm there. I think it sounds a little bit better on the first iteration than the second iteration, um, but you can see there how you can just add a little spice to just bring a little bit of a different sound, um, to the song. So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to do a full playthrough, verse, chorus, with the bridge and everything, so that you can hear it all through. And I'm going to play it at a much faster pace. So if you need to slow me down, just use the settings cog, slow me right down, and you can practice along with me to the song. Here we go. All right, so we're going to take it from the top. This is going to be the speed I'm playing at, so it's 1, 2, and 3, and 4, and just to give you an idea of where we're starting to— 1, 2, 3, and 4, and almost heaven, West Virginia, Blue Ridge Mountains.
Shenandoah River. Life is so there, old than the trees, younger than the mountains, blowing like a breeze. Country Road, take me home to the place where I belong. West Virginia, my Take me home, country roads. Well, all my memories gather round her, a miner's lady, stranger to blue waters. Well, dark and dusty, Painted on the sky. Misty taste of moonshine. Teardrops in my eyes. Country road, take me home to the place I belong. West Virginia, mountains, my mountains. Take me home, country roads.
Here's the bridge, ready?
I hear her voice in the morning hours. She calls to me. The radio reminds me of my home far away. And I'm driving down the road. I get the feeling I should have been home yesterday. Yesterday, country road, take me home to the place I belong. Oh, West Virginia, mountain mama, take me home.
There you go. It's a great song, and if you listen closely enough, you probably heard I made a couple mistakes in there. It's okay to make mistakes. They're totally normal. They happen, and they usually happen when you start thinking about the music. And that's what happened. I started thinking, and I had a slight hesitation on the chorus because I forgot what chord was coming next. And it happens sometimes. That's music. It's about making mistakes. But the important thing When you make a mistake, try to keep your timing and try to keep playing through it, and don't make a face like I did when I rolled my eyes on that chorus. Um, but I hope you had fun learning this pattern, and if you want to learn another really, really cool song that uses this Travis picking pattern, I highly recommend you go check out my Dust in the Wind lesson right over there where you can apply the pattern you used in this song directly to that.
