The Beach Boys
Sloop John B chords
Sloop John B by The Beach Boys is a beginner song in Ab, played with a capo on fret 1. The whole sheet is 5 chords (G, D, G7, C, Am) across 2 sections: Verse → Chorus. Every shape is an open chord, so nothing here needs barre strength.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: G → D, 5 times.
- Difficulty
- Beginnerno barre needed
- Key
- Abwith a capo on fret 1
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 5all open shapes
- Sections
- 2each with its own progression
Chords in Sloop John B
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 · ♩=90
Chorus4/4 · ♩=90
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play Sloop John B
A capo at fret 1 raises the G shapes in this arrangement to Ab. The verse uses eight bars; the chorus shares those eight and adds a final four-bar row. Follow those printed lengths when connecting the sections.
G7 leads into C at the start of the second row. Compared with G, its high E string changes from fret 3 to fret 1, while the low E and A string notes remain at frets 3 and 2. Releasing the high E to open E would make G6, not G7.
C to Am can keep the index on the B string at fret 1 and the middle finger on the D string at fret 2. Move the ring finger from A-string fret 3 to G-string fret 2. That is the useful pivot; there is no need to move both retained fingers across strings.
Practise the verse slowly with one chord per cell. Listen to G7 resolving into C, then join the chorus without losing the extra final row. A light, even strum leaves room to sing while keeping the changes clear.
How to practise Sloop John B
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) → G7 (3-2-0-0-0-1, 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 → G3×Am → G2×C → Am2×
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
- G7every section
- Cevery section
- Amevery section
Climb the tempo ladder
This sheet does not list a tempo, so pick one where every change is clean and use the metronome to move up in 4 BPM steps.
Practise each section's chord changes slowly, then play the sheet through at a steady tempo without pausing between sections.
Playing Sloop John B with a capo
This sheet is written with a capo on fret 1. 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
Ab Eb Ab7 C# Bbm
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 1as written
G D G7 C Am
5 of 5 stay open
Fret 2
F# C# F#7 B Abm
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 3
F C F7 Bb Gm
1 of 5 stay open
Fret 4
E B E7 A F#m
3 of 5 stay open
Fret 5
Eb Bb Eb7 Ab Fm
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 6
D A D7 G Em
5 of 5 stay open
Fret 7
C# Ab C#7 F# Ebm
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 Sloop John B 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 Sloop John B 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×.
33bars of this chord across the songbook
13songs use this shape
Most often followed by C, 11×.
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×.