Traditional
Auld Lang Syne chords
Auld Lang Syne by Traditional is a beginner song in G, played with no capo. The whole sheet is 3 chords (G, C, D7) across 2 sections: Verse → Chorus. Every shape is an open chord, so nothing here needs barre strength. It sits at roughly 76 BPM.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: C → G, 4 times.
- Difficulty
- Beginnerno barre needed
- Key
- Gwith no capo
- Tempo
- 76BPM
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 3all open shapes
- Sections
- 2each with its own progression
Chords in Auld Lang Syne
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.
Verse4/4 · ♩=76
slow and steady, let the last line hang
GShould auld acquaintance Cbe forgot,
GAnd never brought to D7mind?
GShould auld acquaintance Cbe forgot,
GAnd D7days of auld lang Gsyne?
Chorus4/4 · ♩=76
GFor auld lang Csyne, my dear,
GFor auld lang D7syne,
GWe'll tak a cup o' Ckindness yet
GFor D7auld lang Gsyne.
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play Auld Lang Syne
Auld Lang Syne is the song that gets played once a year and mouthed incorrectly by everyone in the room. It is also one of the easiest songs on this site: three chords, and the whole thing sits in a narrow range that almost anybody can sing.
The progression barely moves. G holds the first phrase, C lifts the second half of each
line, and D7 is the pivot that turns the melody back toward home. That D7 is doing all the
work: it contains the leading tone (F#) that makes the return to G feel inevitable, which is
why a plain D sounds limp here and D7 sounds like the song.
Play it as a slow ballad in 4/4. The tune is written to be sung by a room full of people who
have had a drink, so resist the urge to add anything: downstrokes on the beat, one strum per
bar in the verse, and let the D7 ring into the last G. If you are playing it for a crowd at
midnight, hold the final chord rather than stopping it, and let the singing finish after the
guitar does.
How to practise Auld Lang Syne
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) → C (x-3-2-0-1-0, beginner) → D7 (x-x-0-2-1-2, beginner)
3 of the 3 shapes are open chords, so nothing here needs barre strength yet.
Drill the changes this sheet actually uses
C → G4×G → C4×G → D74×D7 → G2×
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
- Cevery section
- D7every section
Climb the tempo ladder
Start at 46 BPM and move up only when a full pass is clean: 46 → 57 → 68 → 76 BPM. The tempo marked on this sheet is 76 BPM, and the last step is the one that always feels like a jump. Stay at 68 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 Auld Lang Syne 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
G C D7
3 of 3 stay open
Fret 1
F# B C#7
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 2
F Bb C7
1 of 3 stay open
Fret 3
E A B7
3 of 3 stay open
Fret 4
Eb Ab Bb7
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 5
D G A7
3 of 3 stay open
Fret 6
C# F# Ab7
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 7
C F G7
2 of 3 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 Auld Lang Syne clicks, these use the closest set of shapes, so the chords you just learned keep working.
More beginner songs to learn after this one: Sweater Weather, Payphone, The Scientist, 505.
These chords across the songbookHow often each chord in Auld Lang Syne 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×.
420bars of this chord across the songbook
70songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 115×.
45bars of this chord across the songbook
12songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 22×.