Hi fam,

I finally got around to doing a video for the fingerstyle version of the John Denver song “Country Roads”. The lesson is complete with video, TAB, and jam tracks. All of the resources are available on this page. I should mention that the jam track has two measures of click before you come in.

I think this is a very important right-of-passage song for folk fingerstyle guitarists because it incorporates so many core techniques that will help you develop your playing. There are only six chords in the entire song, and only one of them is a bar chord. (A Major, F# Minor, E Major, D Major, G Major, and E7)

To make learning the fingerstyle aspect of this song as easy as possible, I came up with a standardized fingerpicking pattern that you can use throughout the entire thing. The pattern generally stays the same for each chord, but the bass notes change depending on which chord you are playing. I recommend getting the pattern down for each individual chord before stitching the chord progressions together to play each section. It's also probably a good idea to leave out the walk-downs and walk-ups until you get the fingerpicking pattern and chord progressions up to speed. 

Once you can play the progressions for each part of the song with the fingerpicking pattern, it will be much easier to throw in the walk-downs and walk-ups. Give it a shot, and let us know if you have any questions, comments, or progress updates as you proceed.