The Beatles
Blackbird chords
Blackbird by The Beatles is an intermediate song in G, played with no capo. The whole sheet is 5 chords (G, Am7, G/B, C, A7) across 2 sections: Verse → Instrumental (repeat verse). Every shape is an open chord, so nothing here needs barre strength. It sits at roughly 94 BPM.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: G/B → C, 4 times.
- Difficulty
- Intermediateno barre needed
- Key
- Gwith no capo
- Tempo
- 94BPM
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 5all open shapes
- Sections
- 2each with its own progression
Chords in Blackbird
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 →
Verse4/4 · ♩=94
Instrumental (repeat verse)4/4 · ♩=94
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play Blackbird
Blackbird is the song that teaches fingerstyle independence: the vocal melody, the bass line and a constant drone all happen on one guitar at the same time. Paul McCartney’s original part is fingerpicked, not strummed.
The chords themselves are friendly — G, Am7, G/B and C — but it’s the G/B slash chord that creates the famous descending bass movement: G, B, C walking under the melody. Play the bass note first with your thumb, then pluck the top strings with index and middle fingers.
The A7 near the end of the verse is the one moment of tension before the line resolves back to G. Practise at half tempo and let every note ring into the next; the piece only sounds like itself when nothing is muffled.
How to practise Blackbird
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) → Am7 (x-0-2-0-1-0, beginner) → G/B (x-2-0-0-3-3, beginner) → C (x-3-2-0-1-0, beginner) → A7 (x-0-2-0-2-0, beginner)
5 of the 5 shapes are open chords, so nothing here needs barre strength yet.
Drill the changes this sheet actually uses
G/B → C4×Am7 → G/B3×C → G/B3×G → Am73×
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
- Am7every section
- G/Bevery section
- Cevery section
- A7every section
Climb the tempo ladder
Start at 56 BPM and move up only when a full pass is clean: 56 → 71 → 85 → 94 BPM. The tempo marked on this sheet is 94 BPM, and the last step is the one that always feels like a jump. Stay at 85 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 Blackbird 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 Am7 G/B C A7
5 of 5 stay open
Fret 1
F# Abm7 F#* B Ab7
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 2
F Gm7 F/A Bb G7
1 of 5 stay open
Fret 3
E F#m7 E* A F#7
3 of 5 stay open
Fret 4
Eb Fm7 Eb* Ab F7
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 5
D Em7 D* G E7
5 of 5 stay open
Fret 6
C# Ebm7 C#* F# Eb7
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 7
C Dm7 C/E F D7
3 of 5 stay open
* this position has no separate fingering for a bass-note inversion in our chord library, so the parent chord is shown. Play that shape and the inversion note is an optional bass addition.
Working out a different key? The capo calculatordoes the same arithmetic for any chord set.
More songs built on the same chords
If Blackbird clicks, these use the closest set of shapes, so the chords you just learned keep working.
More intermediate songs to learn after this one: 500 Miles, Shallow, The One That Got Away, Treat You Better.
These chords across the songbookHow often each chord in Blackbird 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×.
23bars of this chord across the songbook
6songs use this shape
Most often followed by Dm7, 4×.
12bars of this chord across the songbook
4songs use this shape
Most often followed by C, 4×.
420bars of this chord across the songbook
70songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 115×.
49bars of this chord across the songbook
15songs use this shape
Most often followed by Dm7, 10×.