Eagles
Hotel California chords
Hotel California by Eagles is an intermediate song in Bm, played with no capo. The whole sheet is 8 chords (Bm, F#, A, E, G, D, Em, F#7) across 3 sections: Intro ×2 → Verse ×2 → Chorus. 5 of the 8 shapes are open chords and Bm is the one that needs a barre. It sits at roughly 73 BPM.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: Bm → F#, 2 times.
- Difficulty
- Intermediatebarre shape Bm
- Key
- Bmwith no capo
- Tempo
- 73BPM
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 85 open, 3 with a barre
- Sections
- 3each with its own progression
Chords in Hotel California
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× 2 · ♩=73
Verse× 2 · ♩=73
Chorus♩=73
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play Hotel California
Hotel California is a rite of passage for intermediate players: its famous Andalusian-flavoured progression in B minor moves the same way whether you play the arpeggiated intro, strum the verse or drive the chorus.
The eight-bar loop — Bm, F#, A, E, G, D, Em, F#7 — descends step by step, which is what gives the song its endless, hypnotic pull. Practise the intro as slow arpeggios first (pick each chord low to high), then work up to the strummed chorus with palm-muted downstrokes.
The two barre chords, Bm and F#, sit at frets 2 and 3. If F#7 feels awkward, plain F# works everywhere except the final turnaround, where the 7th adds the tension that makes the loop want to start over. Keep your strumming even — the song lives in its steady eighth notes, not in flash.
How to practise Hotel California
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
A (x-0-2-2-2-0, beginner) → E (0-2-2-1-0-0, beginner) → G (3-2-0-0-0-3, beginner) → D (x-x-0-2-3-2, beginner) → Em (0-2-2-0-0-0, beginner) → Bm (x-2-4-4-3-2, intermediate, needs a barre) → F# (2-4-4-3-2-2, intermediate, needs a barre) → F#7 (2-4-2-3-2-2, intermediate, needs a barre)
5 of the 8 shapes are open chords, so start there and leave Bm until the others change cleanly.
Drill the changes this sheet actually uses
G → D4×D → Em3×Em → F#73×A → E2×
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
- Bmevery section
- F#Intro, Verse
- AIntro, Verse
- EIntro, Verse
- Gevery section
- Devery section
- Emevery section
- F#7every section
Climb the tempo ladder
Start at 44 BPM and move up only when a full pass is clean: 44 → 55 → 66 → 73 BPM. The recorded feel is around 73 BPM, and the last step is the one that always feels like a jump. Stay at 66 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 Hotel California 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
Bm F# A E G D Em F#7
5 of 8 stay open
Fret 1
Bbm F Ab Eb F# C# Ebm F7
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 2
Am E G D F C Dm E7
7 of 8 stay open
Fret 3
Abm Eb F# C# E B C#m Eb7
1 of 8 stay open
Fret 4
Gm D F C Eb Bb Cm D7
3 of 8 stay open
Fret 5
F#m C# E B D A Bm C#7
3 of 8 stay open
Fret 6
Fm C Eb Bb C# Ab Bbm C7
2 of 8 stay open
Fret 7
Em B D A C G Am B7
7 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 Hotel California clicks, these use the closest set of shapes, so the chords you just learned keep working.
More intermediate songs to learn after this one: Hey Jude, The Weight, Blackbird, Nothing Else Matters.
These chords across the songbookHow often each chord in Hotel California 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.
53bars of this chord across the songbook
11songs use this shape
Most often followed by A, 12×.
2bars 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×.
64bars of this chord across the songbook
9songs use this shape
Most often followed by Eadd9, 6×.
418bars of this chord across the songbook
59songs use this shape
Most often followed by C, 80×.
248bars of this chord across the songbook
44songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 40×.
113bars of this chord across the songbook
30songs use this shape
Most often followed by C, 27×.
4bars of this chord across the songbook
1songs use this shape
Most often followed by Bm, 1×.