George Gershwin
Summertime chords
Summertime by George Gershwin is an intermediate song in Am, played with no capo. The whole sheet is 5 chords (Am, Dm, E7, F, C) across 2 sections: A → B. 4 of the 5 shapes are open chords. Shapes that use a barre: F. It sits at roughly 70 BPM.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: Am → Dm, 2 times.
- Difficulty
- Intermediatebarre shape F
- Key
- Amwith no capo
- Tempo
- 70BPM
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 54 open, 1 with a barre
- Sections
- 2each with its own progression
Chords in Summertime
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 →
A4/4 · ♩=70
B4/4 · ♩=70
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play Summertime
Summertime is five chords in A minor, and it does not behave like a folk song — the chords stay put for two bars at a time while the melody drifts over them. Resist the urge to fill. Set the metronome to a slow 55 and play one soft arpeggio per bar on the bottom four strings, letting each chord ring for its full count before you move. The stillness is the sound, and busy strumming ruins this tune faster than wrong notes.
The Dm, E7 and Am cadence is the pair of changes to isolate. Dm keeps the G string at fret 2 when moving to Am, but its high E at fret 1 and B string at fret 3 must change to open E and fret 1. E7 has a different grip again. Pick each bass first, then the upper chord, and use the diagrams to prepare each change.
Loop the first four bars at 55 BPM for five minutes with the metronome clicking, letting each two-bar chord sit still for its full count and checking that your bass note speaks on its own. Then add the second half with its Dm and E7 resolution, and finally play the whole sixteen bars twice without stopping. Only when that drone-like feel is comfortable should you put a simple single-note melody on top, and only with the metronome still running, because the melody drifts ahead of the chords the moment nothing is holding the time.
How to practise Summertime
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
Am (x-0-2-2-1-0, beginner) → Dm (x-x-0-2-3-1, beginner) → E7 (0-2-0-1-0-0, beginner) → C (x-3-2-0-1-0, beginner) → F (1-3-3-2-1-1, intermediate, needs a barre)
4 of the 5 shapes are open chords, so start there and leave F until the others change cleanly.
Drill the changes this sheet actually uses
Am → Dm2×Am → E72×Dm → E72×E7 → Am1×
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
- Amevery section
- Dmevery section
- E7every section
- F
- C
Climb the tempo ladder
Start at 42 BPM and move up only when a full pass is clean: 42 → 53 → 63 → 70 BPM. The tempo marked on this sheet is 70 BPM, and the last step is the one that always feels like a jump. Stay at 63 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 Summertime 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
Am Dm E7 F C
4 of 5 stay open
Fret 1
Abm C#m Eb7 E B
1 of 5 stay open
Fret 2
Gm Cm D7 Eb Bb
1 of 5 stay open
Fret 3
F#m Bm C#7 D A
2 of 5 stay open
Fret 4
Fm Bbm C7 C# Ab
1 of 5 stay open
Fret 5
Em Am B7 C G
5 of 5 stay open
Fret 6
Ebm Abm Bb7 B F#
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 7
Dm Gm A7 Bb F
2 of 5 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 Summertime clicks, these use the closest set of shapes, so the chords you just learned keep working.
More intermediate songs to learn after this one: Father and Son, Shallow, Treat You Better, Landslide.
These chords across the songbookHow often each chord in Summertime 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.
125bars of this chord across the songbook
35songs use this shape
Most often followed by F, 23×.
23bars of this chord across the songbook
9songs use this shape
Most often followed by F, 5×.
31bars of this chord across the songbook
10songs use this shape
Most often followed by A7, 4×.
114bars of this chord across the songbook
29songs use this shape
Most often followed by C, 38×.
420bars of this chord across the songbook
70songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 115×.