Tennessee Whiskey Guitar Tutorial (Rhythm + Lead Guitar) Chris Stapleton

Chris Stapleton - Tennessee Whiskey

Tennessee Whiskey Guitar Tutorial

Hey everyone! Welcome to my Tennessee Whiskey Guitar Tutorial by Chris Stapleton. This easy 2 chord song for guitar is great for beginners. We will improve chord switching and practice rhythm to improve your basic guitar skills, using a real song!

I’m going to show you 3 things in this lesson:

  1. How to play the song using basic chord shapes (requires a Capo at the 2nd fret)
  2. How to play the lead guitar part
  3. How to play the song WITHOUT a capo (requires the use of a BARRE CHORD)

This easy guitar song for beginners was written by Dean Dillon and Linda Hargrove. Originally performed by David Allan Coe. George Jones’ version is also notable.

Tennessee Whiskey Chords: G, Am — A, Bm

Tennessee Whiskey Sheet Music/TAB no longer available due to copyright issues, but I have something even better!

Tennessee Whiskey FULL PLAY-THROUGH (entire song, start to finish) available on my Patreon page:

Click here

We start off by learning 2 chord shapes: G and Am. We strum through them to practice switching, and then learn a simple strumming pattern. This one is in 3/4 time, so we count it out “1 + 2 + 3 +” – make sure you take it slow and work it out just like we talk about in the lesson. Once you have it down, we put it together with the chords and play through the verse. Be sure to check out my Tennessee Whiskey Chords PDF (link above) if you need help with the chord shapes!

Next we learn the lead guitar part, which is pretty simple but requires the use of SLIDES. I recommend practicing slides from the 2nd to 4th fret (and back) on the A string, OVER and over again.

After putting the lead guitar part together, we finally learn how to play this song without using a capo. This means using the Bm barre chord. I go over a good way to visualize it, and then go over a few tips for making sure you don’t hurt your wrist and can properly develop the right technique to play it.

I recommend going through my barre chord miniseries (free on my site)

Finally, as an added bonus, I show you how to play a nifty rhythm guitar embellishment that spices up the tune a little bit – just in case the rest was a bit too easy for you 😉

Enjoy the lesson, I’ll see you soon!

-James

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  • 0:00 – INTRO
  • 2:13 – EASY CHORDS & SWITCHING PRACTICE
  • 3:55 – STRUMMING PATTERN
  • 5:42 – EASY PLAY-ALONG
  • 7:08 – LEAD GUITAR RIFF
  • 10:46 – INTERMEDIATE VERSION CHORDS
  • 12:40 – EMBELLISHMENT ON A CHORD
  • 14:42 – INTERMEDIATE PLAY-ALONG

#tennesseewhiskey #chrisstapleton #guitarlesson