Sweet Home Alabama Chords (& Bonus Tips For Playing This Classic Song)

Sweet Home Alabama Chords – The Chords, Two Ways

This song revolves around three primary chords – D major, Cadd9 and G major.

The advantage that we have in this song is that all of these chords can be played with minimal alterations in hand position.

If you’re an absolute beginner and this is one of the first songs you’re learning, we’ve stripped down the chords for you to make it easier.

Pro Tip: Start out by practicing these Sweet Home Alabama chords individually before you put it all together. 

Regardless of what song you’re learning, it always helps to break things down to their individual chords first before tackling the song in its entirety. 

Let’s have a look at what we’re working with:

 

D (aka ‘D major’)

Cadd9 (pronounced ‘C added 9’)

G (aka ‘G major’)

Because each of these Sweet Home Alabama chords moves with the sound of the bass guitar, using a top-heavy style of strumming helps us to follow along in a stronger way.

Pro Tip: Start by strumming the lowest note (the thickest strings) in each of the chords below to bring out the bass element. 

You can start with a strumming pattern that looks something like this:

(Pick strokes with a ‘-’ next to them indicate a longer pick stroke)

D Major – Down, Down, Down -, Up

Cadd9 – Down, Down, Down -, Up

G Major – Down, Down, Down -, Up

Sweet Home Alabama Chords – Song Structure

Some songs are created with three or more different musical sections, chock-full of different chords that are all theoretically woven together.

Some songs stick to two distinct sections to make the song stand out.

Well, this song does neither of those things!

Instead, we are more or less locked into this pattern of D major – Cadd9 – G major for the entirety of the song! The Sweet Home Alabama chords loop around for most of the song.

But Lynyrd Skynyrd compensates for this seemingly static chord progression by providing lots of musical movement through the lead guitar sections (as well as other instruments).

The chords provide a basic foundation, and they run wild on top of that base. It works wonderfully!

Each chord is accompanied by a riff of some kind by the lead guitarist that accentuates what is already happening in the song.

The beauty in this song comes in the strumming. We can make great use of our picking hand to pick through all of the Sweet Home Alabama chords to carry the rhythm and melody of the song all at once.

Practice your arpeggios if you really want to harness the melodic elements of the Sweet Home Alabama chords as they’re presented on the original recording.

At this point, we want to turn your attention to this breakdown of the chords of the song here.

If we read through this chord chart, do you see anything that stands out to you? 

Sweet Home Alabama Chords – A Wild F Chord Appears!

For one fleeting moment, we have to contend with a chord that isn’t as easy as the other Sweet Home Alabama chords on this list.

That’s alright though, we’re going to walk you through it!

The F chord appears once (and briefly) in the second verse. It’s pretty unusual.

Have a look at the layout of this section below with the lyrics:

D                  C                      G             F      C     D

In Birmingham they love the Gov’nor  Ooo hoo hoo !

D                C                 G

Now we all did what we could do.

D             C                  G

Now Watergate does not bother me.

D                C                         G

Does your conscience bother you?  (tell the truth)

For how briefly this chord pops up, it almost seems like it doesn’t make sense to play it – but it totally does.

This F chord serves as a transition back to the C chord, which then transitions us back to D major.

We can try playing this progression with just two C chords back-to-back, but it just doesn’t sound the same.

Try This: Rather than tackling the full F chord, we can instead play just the A, D and G strings of the chord. This will help us transition to C major more easily, then back to D major. 

Additionally, this short-form version of the F major contains all the notes you need to still sound like the Sweet Home Alabama chords you’re going for. This means you don’t have to worry about missing the mark when jamming with other people!

Pro Tip: The best C chord to play in this song is most definitely the Cadd9, but if you’re not comfortable with that chord yet you can easily swap for C major without any problem.

Once you’ve gotten comfortable with this section of the song, let’s move on to some riffs. 

Sweet Home Alabama Chords – How To Play The Riff

One of the things that makes up for the simplicity in these Sweet Home Alabama chords is the riff that is played over top of those chords. 

The main riff is based directly around the chords themselves, so it’s super easy to play. 

In the simplest sense, we can follow these simple steps to playing the riff that accompanies these Sweet Home Alabama chords:

– Make a D chord, then pick the strings D – D – B – G

– Make a C chord (or Cadd9), then pick the strings A – A – B – G

– Make a G Chord, then pick the strings E – E – G (x2)

You want to make sure that you pick each of these strings separately, but allow them to ring out altogether.

A big part of this technique lies in the positioning of our hand. 

If we are leaning in too hard on a string with our fingers, we may end up muting other strings that we need.

Pro Tip: A great way to practice letting strings ring out is to play arpeggios.

Arpeggios are not only a great way for us to make chords sound even more beautiful, but they also help us check our hand position to ensure that we aren’t muting any necessary strings.

Click here for a full guide on arpeggios

Now that we’ve got the essence of these Sweet Home Alabama chords under our fingers, it’s time to get the melody through our ears and into our heads!

Singing = Ear Training

We know – You didn’t sign up for singing lessons.

Well guess what? We’re not giving singing lessons. We’re giving melody lessons.

Regardless of if you sing jazz music or can’t sing at all, learning melody is a crucial part of being a guitarist. 

One of the best ways that we can learn to internalize a melody from a song is to sing it or hum it in order to let it travel into our ears.

But I’m playing the song on my guitar, it’s already in my ears!

That may be so – but singing helps us vocalize the melody of the song out loud, and that’s different than just playing chords on a guitar. 

When we sing, we bring a melody into physical space, allowing us to hear it and deconstruct the parts of it easier. It sounds weird, but it works wonders.

Ear training is one of those things where you don’t necessarily see or notice your improvement immediately.

Often times, we won’t even notice that our ears are sharper until we end up picking out something distinct from a song that we didn’t know was there previously!

• As you progress along your guitar journey, come back to these Sweet Home Alabama chords and see what new things you pick out.
• Take the time to give your ears the training they need to keep up with your hands.
• It’s important to strike a balance between the two to make sure you’re always at the top of your game.

Ear training is powerful, but it is one of the most overlooked pieces of musical training by most guitarists.

Sweet Home Alabama Power Chords

If you really want to rock out with this track, you can use power chords to beef up this song and forego the riff altogether.

Power chords can be swapped out in almost any instance to add a bit more ‘rock flair’ to a song we already know. This is great practice for mastering the sound of a song in different ways.

We always recommend experimenting with a song in as many different ways as possible in order to really get it into your head.

Check out the power chord versions of these Sweet Home Alabama chords below and give them a shot!

D5 (D powerchord)

C5 (C powerchord)

G5 (G powerchord)

 

F5 (F powerchord)

Pro Tip: As you learn new chord shapes, come back to this song and try them out to see how they sound in context against the other Sweet Home Alabama chords you know already.

Practicing new chords in this way helps us determine which chords sound good with other chords, and which chords don’t. It’s also develops your chord vocabulary which makes you more articulate as a musician.

Tone Facts

The story goes that Lynyrd Skynyrd used Peavey Mace amps on many of their songs, but not this one!

We’re told that the majority of this song was tracked through a Fender Twin using a late 60’s Fender Strat.

The Fender ToneMaster Twin Reverb is one of our favourite amps out there, and stays faithful to the original.

It cleans up beautifully and plays exceptionally well with pedals. If you’re looking for a do-all guitar amp, we recommend checking it out!

 

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Where Do I Go From Here?

If you want to get more out of these Sweet Home Alabama chords, be sure to check out our suggestions below:

• Play along to the track
• Practice your chord transitions
• Practice to a metronome here
• Count out loud as you play
• Find other songs by Lynyrd Skynyrd that use similar chord progressions

Recommended Resources

If you enjoyed this free guitar lesson, you’ll enjoy some of the other free material we have for you. Check out these lessons from National Guitar Academy below!

• Top 10 Guitar Books For Beginners
• Guitar Chords – The Ultimate Guide
• Open Chords
• Music Theory For Beginners
• 6 Easy Guitar Lessons For Beginners