Christina Perri
A Thousand Years chords
A Thousand Years by Christina Perri is a beginner song in Bb, played with a capo on fret 3. The whole sheet is 5 chords (G, D, Em, C, Am) across 3 sections: Intro → Verse → Chorus. Every shape is an open chord, so nothing here needs barre strength. It sits at roughly 139 BPM.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: G → D, 5 times.
- Difficulty
- Beginnerno barre needed
- Key
- Bbwith a capo on fret 3
- Tempo
- 139BPM
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 5all open shapes
- Sections
- 3each with its own progression
Chords in A Thousand Years
Frets read low E to high E, x means leave that string out.
Chord sheet
One chord per bar in this practice sheet. Follow the time signature shown beside each section; dots mark the remaining counts in the bar. Tap a bar to hear its chord, or loop the section to practise the changes.
Chord accompaniment only. Follow the section notes for this arrangement’s timing. Songs whose words are public domain →
Intro4/4 · ♩=139
Verse4/4 · ♩=139
Chorus4/4 · ♩=139
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play A Thousand Years
A Thousand Years is a slow four-chord loop with a capo on fret 3, which keeps the shapes in G, D, Em and C while the song sounds in Bb. Learn those four in that order and you already have the intro and the chorus. Play each chord as a gentle arpeggio, one note at a time, and let the strings marked for each chord ring until you actually need to move.
The important pair is D to Em. D uses x-x-0-2-3-2, while Em uses 0-2-2-0-0-0. Their fretted notes do not provide a fixed B-string or G-string anchor. Prepare Em on the A and D strings at fret 2, release the D triangle, and check the newly open high strings. Practise that change slowly before joining the four-chord loop.
The verse rearranges the same shapes — C, G, Em, D repeating, then C, G, Am, Em before it resolves back through D and G — so it feels like the chorus upside down. Play along at about 100 BPM, one chord per bar, and record yourself once a week; slowing this down exposes every late change. Speed is not the goal here: closing the silence between chords is what you are hunting for.
How to practise A Thousand Years
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 speed marked here.
Learn the shapes easiest first
G (3-2-0-0-0-3, beginner) → D (x-x-0-2-3-2, beginner) → Em (0-2-2-0-0-0, beginner) → C (x-3-2-0-1-0, beginner) → Am (x-0-2-2-1-0, beginner)
5 of the 5 shapes are open chords, so nothing here needs barre strength yet.
Drill the changes this sheet actually uses
G → D5×D → Em4×Em → C4×C → G3×
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
- Gevery section
- Devery section
- Emevery section
- Cevery section
- AmVerse
Climb the tempo ladder
Start at 83 BPM and move up only when a full pass is clean: 83 → 104 → 125 → 139 BPM. The tempo marked on this sheet is 139 BPM, and the last step is the one that always feels like a jump. Stay at 125 for longer than feels necessary.
Practise each section's chord changes slowly, then play the sheet through at a steady tempo without pausing between sections.
Playing A Thousand Years with a capo
This sheet is written with a capo on fret 3. 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 capo
Bb F Gm Eb Cm
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 1
A E F#m D Bm
3 of 5 stay open
Fret 2
Ab Eb Fm C# Bbm
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 3as written
G D Em C Am
5 of 5 stay open
Fret 4
F# C# Ebm B Abm
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 5
F C Dm Bb Gm
2 of 5 stay open
Fret 6
E B C#m A F#m
2 of 5 stay open
Fret 7
Eb Bb Cm Ab Fm
no open shapes left, all barre
Working out a different key? The capo calculatordoes the same arithmetic for any chord set.
More songs built on the same chords
If A Thousand Years clicks, these use the closest set of shapes, so the chords you just learned keep working.
More beginner songs to learn after this one: Payphone, The Scientist, 505, Linger.
These chords across the songbookHow often each chord in A Thousand Years turns up across all 104 songs on this site, and what it most often moves to next. The counts come from the sheet library itself, not from theory.
509bars of this chord across the songbook
77songs use this shape
Most often followed by D, 89×.
323bars of this chord across the songbook
58songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 52×.
155bars of this chord across the songbook
43songs use this shape
Most often followed by C, 27×.
420bars of this chord across the songbook
70songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 115×.
125bars of this chord across the songbook
35songs use this shape
Most often followed by F, 23×.