America
A Horse with No Name chords
A Horse with No Name by America is a beginner song in Em, played with no capo. The whole sheet is 6 chords (Em, D6, D, Dadd9, Asus2, A) across 3 sections: Intro → Verse → Chorus. Every shape is an open chord, so nothing here needs barre strength. It sits at roughly 124 BPM.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: Em → D6, 6 times.
- Difficulty
- Beginnerno barre needed
- Key
- Emwith no capo
- Tempo
- 124BPM
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 6all open shapes
- Sections
- 3each with its own progression
Chords in A Horse with No Name
Frets read low E to high E, x means leave that string out.
Chord sheet
One chord per bar, four beats to the bar: the shape lands on beat one and the dots mark the beats after it, so you can see where the change falls without any lyrics. Where a section has no strumming pattern written, play one chord per bar. Tap a bar to hear it.
Lyrics are not reproduced for this song: they are still in copyright and this site has no licence to publish them. The chords, structure, strumming and sing-along timing are all here. Songs whose words are public domain →
Intro♩=124
Verse♩=124
Chorus♩=124
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play A Horse with No Name
Two chords, one bar each, forever. The verse is Em then D6, and the whole song is decided by whether those two changes are even and relaxed. D6 here is a D chord with the B string left open, which is why it sounds softer than a plain D and why the change is easy: keep the D triangle exactly where it is and lift the finger off the B string. Do not rebuild the shape, because the shape never actually moves.
The chorus swaps to Asus2 alternating with A, and that pair is a single finger: Asus2 is the A shape with the finger on the B string lifted, so the suspension and the resolution live half a centimetre apart. Play Asus2 for two beats and A for two beats, and make the finger drop exactly on the click. If you hear a buzz, you are placing the finger too far from the fret wire, not pressing too softly.
D rarely stands on its own in this song, which is exactly why it is easy to miss in the chorus. The same three fingers that play D6 also play plain D and Dadd9, so the whole D family is one triangle plus one decision about the B and high E strings: D6 has the B string ringing open, Dadd9 has the high E string open instead, and D has both fretted. Play the two-bar Chorus tag as D, then Dadd9, then D, and listen for the melody note changing while your hand stays still.
Set the metronome to 100 and play eight full bars of the Verse without stopping, counting out loud. The temptation is to rush the D6 back to Em because the change is so small; count the silent space instead. Once eight bars feel effortless, add the Chorus, and only then play the two together for five minutes, which is roughly the length of the record and about as long as your attention will hold.
How to practise A Horse with No Name
Four steps computed from this sheet: the order the shapes are easiest to learn in, the changes that really occur in the progressions above, where each chord turns up, and the tempo ladder up to the recorded speed.
Learn the shapes easiest first
Em (0-2-2-0-0-0, beginner) → D6 (x-x-0-2-0-2, beginner) → D (x-x-0-2-3-2, beginner) → Dadd9 (x-x-0-2-3-0, beginner) → Asus2 (x-0-2-2-0-0, beginner) → A (x-0-2-2-2-0, beginner)
6 of the 6 shapes are open chords, so nothing here needs barre strength yet.
Drill the changes this sheet actually uses
Em → D66×D6 → Em4×Em → Dadd94×Asus2 → A2×
These counts come from the progressions on this page, so they are the changes you will actually play, not a generic list of pairs to practise.
Know where each chord turns up
- EmIntro, Verse
- D6Intro, Verse
- DChorus
- Dadd9every section
- Asus2Chorus
- AChorus
Climb the tempo ladder
Start at 74 BPM and move up only when a full pass is clean: 74 → 93 → 112 → 124 BPM. The recorded feel is around 124 BPM, and the last step is the one that always feels like a jump. Stay at 112 for longer than feels necessary.
Every section here uses the same set of shapes, so there is no section to single out. Whatever you can play once, you can play all the way through.
Playing A Horse with No Name with a capo
This sheet needs no capo. Each card shows what you would finger at that capo position so the song still sounds exactly as written. Useful when the shapes above are awkward, or when you want to sing it higher without learning new chords.
No capoas written
Em D6 D Dadd9 Asus2 A
6 of 6 stay open
Fret 2
Dm C6 C Cadd9 Gsus2 G
5 of 6 stay open
Fret 5
Bm A6 A Aadd9 Esus2 E
4 of 6 stay open
Fret 7
Am G6 G Gadd9 Dsus2 D
6 of 6 stay open
Working out a different key? The capo calculatordoes the same arithmetic for any chord set.
More songs built on the same chords
If A Horse with No Name clicks, these use the closest set of shapes, so the chords you just learned keep working.
More beginner songs to learn after this one: Wonderwall, Let It Be, Creep, Hallelujah.
These chords across the songbookHow often each chord in A Horse with No Name turns up across all 80 songs on this site, and what it most often moves to next. The counts come from the sheet library itself, not from theory.
113bars of this chord across the songbook
30songs use this shape
Most often followed by C, 27×.
8bars of this chord across the songbook
2songs use this shape
Most often followed by Em, 4×.
248bars of this chord across the songbook
44songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 40×.
5bars of this chord across the songbook
1songs use this shape
Most often followed by D, 1×.
3bars of this chord across the songbook
1songs use this shape
Most often followed by A, 2×.
120bars of this chord across the songbook
20songs use this shape
Most often followed by D, 24×.