Jazz Standard
Bye Bye Blackbird chords
Bye Bye Blackbird by Jazz Standard is an intermediate song in F, played with no capo. The whole sheet is 8 chords (F, C6, Cm6, G7, Dm7, Am7, E7, A7) across 4 sections: Verse → Chorus A → Chorus B → Turnaround. 6 of the 8 shapes are open chords and F is the one that needs a barre. It sits at roughly 120 BPM.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: F → C6, 6 times.
- Difficulty
- Intermediatebarre shape F
- Key
- Fwith no capo
- Tempo
- 120BPM
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 86 open, 2 with a barre
- Sections
- 4each with its own progression
Chords in Bye Bye Blackbird
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 →
Verse♩=120
Chorus A♩=120
Chorus B♩=120
Turnaround♩=120
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play Bye Bye Blackbird
The signature move in this tune is that the tonic chord is almost never a plain F: it is F to C6, over and over, and C6 is the open C shape slid up so that you are playing the fifth of F in the bass. Keep the same four-finger grip and move it five frets; the top notes barely change, and the bass rocks between F and C. Play it as a two-beat shuffle, one chord per two beats, with the right hand swinging the eighth notes.
C6 and Cm6 are the other pair worth isolating. In the second half of the chorus the progression passes through C6 to Cm6 on its way to G7, which is one finger moving down a fret on the G string while the bass note stays put. Practise that single-fret slide with the metronome at 90 until it is silent, then add the G7, whose bass note drops to the low E string at the 3rd fret and back up to C.
A7 and Dm7 form the brightest moment: A7 is the secondary dominant that pushes into Dm7, and both sit inside a four-fret stretch on the top four strings. Play A7 in the movable shape with the index finger barring the D, G and B strings, then slide the whole grip up two frets for a Bm7 if you want a substitute; the target Dm7 is the same shape one string set down.
Set the metronome to 100 and loop the first eight bars of the chorus, four beats to the bar, changing chord on beats one and three. When the F to C6 rock feels automatic, add the turnaround Am7 to Dm7 to G7 to C6 and play it as one phrase instead of four chords. That cadence is where most players lose the form, so practise it last and slowest.
How to practise Bye Bye 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 recorded speed.
Learn the shapes easiest first
C6 (x-3-2-2-1-0, beginner) → Cm6 (x-3-1-2-1-3, beginner) → G7 (3-2-0-0-0-1, beginner) → Am7 (x-0-2-0-1-0, beginner) → E7 (0-2-0-1-0-0, beginner) → A7 (x-0-2-0-2-0, beginner) → F (1-3-3-2-1-1, intermediate, needs a barre) → Dm7 (x-x-0-2-1-1, intermediate, needs a barre)
6 of the 8 shapes are open chords, so start there and leave F until the others change cleanly.
Drill the changes this sheet actually uses
F → C66×Dm7 → G73×G7 → C63×C6 → F2×
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
- Fevery section
- C6every section
- Cm6Chorus A
- G7every section
- Dm7Chorus A, Chorus B, Turnaround
- Am7Turnaround
- E7Turnaround
- A7Chorus B
Climb the tempo ladder
Start at 72 BPM and move up only when a full pass is clean: 72 → 90 → 108 → 120 BPM. The recorded feel is around 120 BPM, and the last step is the one that always feels like a jump. Stay at 108 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 Bye Bye 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
F C6 Cm6 G7 Dm7 Am7 E7 A7
6 of 8 stay open
Fret 1
E B6 Bm6 F#7 C#m7 Abm7 Eb7 Ab7
2 of 8 stay open
Fret 2
Eb Bb6 Bbm6 F7 Cm7 Gm7 D7 G7
2 of 8 stay open
Fret 3
D A6 Am6 E7 Bm7 F#m7 C#7 F#7
4 of 8 stay open
Fret 4
C# Ab6 Abm6 Eb7 Bbm7 Fm7 C7 F7
1 of 8 stay open
Fret 5
C G6 Gm6 D7 Am7 Em7 B7 E7
8 of 8 stay open
Fret 6
B F#6 F#m6 C#7 Abm7 Ebm7 Bb7 Eb7
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 7
Bb F6 Fm6 C7 Gm7 Dm7 A7 D7
3 of 8 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 Bye Bye 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: Hotel California, Hey Jude, Wish You Were Here, The Weight.
These chords across the songbookHow often each chord in Bye Bye Blackbird 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.
106bars of this chord across the songbook
24songs use this shape
Most often followed by C, 31×.
13bars of this chord across the songbook
2songs use this shape
Most often followed by Cm6, 3×.
3bars of this chord across the songbook
2songs use this shape
Most often followed by Dm7, 2×.
33bars of this chord across the songbook
13songs use this shape
Most often followed by C, 11×.
29bars of this chord across the songbook
6songs use this shape
Most often followed by G7, 13×.
10bars of this chord across the songbook
3songs use this shape
Most often followed by Dm7, 4×.
29bars of this chord across the songbook
9songs use this shape
Most often followed by A7, 4×.
47bars of this chord across the songbook
14songs use this shape
Most often followed by Dm7, 10×.