Traditional
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot chords
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot by Traditional is a beginner song in G, played with no capo. The whole sheet is 3 chords (G, C, D7) across 2 sections: Chorus → Verse. Every shape is an open chord, so nothing here needs barre strength. It sits at roughly 72 BPM.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: C → G, 4 times.
- Difficulty
- Beginnerno barre needed
- Key
- Gwith no capo
- Tempo
- 72BPM
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 3all open shapes
- Sections
- 2each with its own progression
Chords in Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
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.
Chorus♩=72
slow, call-and-response feel
GSwing low, sweet Cchariot,
GComin' for to D7carry me Ghome;
GSwing low, sweet Cchariot,
GComin' for to D7carry me Ghome.
Verse♩=72
GI looked over CJordan and Gwhat did I D7see,
GA band of angels Ccomin' after D7me.
GIf you get there Cbefore I Gdo,
GTell all my friends I'm D7comin' Gtoo.
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
This is one of the oldest songs on the site and still one of the best to learn on. Three chords cover the whole thing, the melody is pentatonic, and the call-and-response shape means you can sing it even if you do not think of yourself as a singer.
The arrangement is a slow 4/4 with a gospel lift. G carries the opening phrase, C answers
it, and D7 pulls back to G with the same leading-tone trick that makes dozens of hymns
resolve. The interesting decision is the second line: many players hold G for two bars and
drop C entirely, which sounds more like a congregation and less like a strummed exercise.
If you want the guitar to sound like a guitar and not a metronome, add a bass walk between G
and C (play G, then the open A string, then C) on the chorus. It is the single cheapest
upgrade available to this song, and it teaches you the walk-up that shows up again in dozens of
spirituals, soul ballads and country songs.
How to practise Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
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
G (3-2-0-0-0-3, beginner) → C (x-3-2-0-1-0, beginner) → D7 (x-x-0-2-1-2, beginner)
3 of the 3 shapes are open chords, so nothing here needs barre strength yet.
Drill the changes this sheet actually uses
C → G4×G → C4×G → D74×D7 → G2×
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
- Cevery section
- D7every section
Climb the tempo ladder
Start at 43 BPM and move up only when a full pass is clean: 43 → 54 → 65 → 72 BPM. The recorded feel is around 72 BPM, and the last step is the one that always feels like a jump. Stay at 65 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 Swing Low, Sweet Chariot 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 C D7
3 of 3 stay open
Fret 1
F# B C#7
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 2
F Bb C7
1 of 3 stay open
Fret 3
E A B7
3 of 3 stay open
Fret 4
Eb Ab Bb7
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 5
D G A7
3 of 3 stay open
Fret 6
C# F# Ab7
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 7
C F G7
2 of 3 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 Swing Low, Sweet Chariot clicks, these use the closest set of shapes, so the chords you just learned keep working.
More beginner songs to learn after this one: Wonderwall, Let It Be, Creep, Hallelujah.
These chords across the songbookHow often each chord in Swing Low, Sweet Chariot 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.
418bars of this chord across the songbook
59songs use this shape
Most often followed by C, 80×.
363bars of this chord across the songbook
54songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 115×.
44bars of this chord across the songbook
12songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 20×.