500 Miles chords

How to play 500 Miles

500 Miles by Peter, Paul and Mary uses C, Am, Dm, F and G7 in this C-major guitar study. This is Hedy West’s folk song, distinct from The Proclaimers’ similarly titled song. Keep standard tuning and leave the capo off. The chart gives each change four beats at 80 BPM, letting you practise the complete verse’s harmonic movement before coordinating it with a singer.

Choose the folk song and the C-major arrangement

Bruce Watson’s own teaching chart names Hedy West as writer and Peter, Paul and Mary as the performing group. It provides the C–Am–Dm–F harmony used here. His sheet is arranged for ukulele; this page supplies guitar fingerings in standard tuning. Its four-string diagrams and picked notes are not guitar instructions, and they are not reproduced here.

The C-major setting belongs to this selected arrangement. A singer may need a different key, so test the comfortable high and low notes before choosing a capo position. Moving the same shapes up two frets would make them sound in D. Changing the key should move all five chords together; choosing one easier grip in isolation can change the harmony rather than transpose it.

Hear the different endings of the two halves

Read the fourteen boxes as two groups of seven changes. The first group is C–Am–Dm–F–Dm–F–G7. The second begins the same way but ends on C. The first ending leaves a pull toward home; the second arrives there. Stop after each group while learning, then connect both without inserting an extra beat at the row break.

Here each symbol gets a complete four-beat practice bar. These expanded durations help you prepare Dm and F, but they do not indicate where every sung syllable falls. The source also offers an optional G7 after the final C as a turnaround. Leave it out for the displayed ending; add it only when everyone has agreed to begin another verse. Do not let that optional chord replace the C arrival.

Prepare the Dm–F change without dragging the count

Dm begins on the open fourth string; keep strings 6 and 5 silent. F uses the displayed full barre, so check each string individually before adding a broad stroke. Move between Dm and F without relying on a shared finger that your chosen F fingering cannot retain. Land the grip quietly, test the top string, then return to the four-beat pulse.

If the full F is not ready, a separate upper-string exercise can use xx3211, with both bass strings silent. That grip still contains F, A and C, but it is a different voicing from the six-string diagram. Fmaj7 introduces E and changes the harmony. Practise the actual F sound first rather than treating every chord with an F in its name as interchangeable.

Make G7 lead back to C

G7 contains G, B, D and F. Hear the B rise to C and the F fall to E when it resolves to C; those small movements help explain the stronger pull compared with plain G. Play one light downstroke on each numbered beat, keeping the return motion relaxed between attacks. The last beat belongs to the current chord even while the fretting hand prepares the next one.

Try three passes: count both seven-change groups aloud, play them without looking at the fretting hand, then have a partner signal either a final C or another verse. Settle that signal before playing with vocals. The exercise develops changes and an agreed ending; it does not supply the original picking, a melody transcription or a recording-specific verse count.