Ed Sheeran
Thinking Out Loud chords
Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran is a beginner song in D, played with no capo. The whole sheet is 6 chords (D, G, A, Bm, F#m, Em) across 3 sections: Verse → Pre-Chorus → Chorus. 4 of the 6 shapes are open chords. Shapes that use a barre: Bm, F#m. It sits at roughly 79 BPM.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: A → Bm, 2 times.
- Difficulty
- Beginnerbarre shape Bm
- Key
- Dwith no capo
- Tempo
- 79BPM
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 64 open, 2 with a barre
- Sections
- 3each with its own progression
Chords in Thinking Out Loud
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 · ♩=79
Pre-Chorus4/4 · ♩=79
Chorus4/4 · ♩=79
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play Thinking Out Loud
This standard-tuning arrangement needs no capo. Follow the verse cells as printed, with each chord lasting one bar. Begin with quiet downstrokes before adding the eighth-note pattern; keep the tempo steady as the harmony changes.
Bm is x-2-4-4-3-2. To reach it from open A, add the fret-2 barre, set D and G at fret 4 and B at fret 3. Sliding the open A grip unchanged would produce B major. If the full grip is tiring, practise x-x-4-4-3-2 first, muting both bass strings, then restore the A-string root.
F#m is 2-4-4-2-2-2: a fret-2 barre with A and D both fretted at 4. Its four-string alternative is x-x-4-2-2-2. Compare these grips with Bm before joining the chorus’s Bm, A, G and F#m descent. Keep the right hand at the same speed throughout.
Set the metronome below the page’s target tempo while learning. Practise the verse, pre-chorus and chorus separately, then connect them using their printed lengths. Prepare each new grip during the preceding bar and make the audible change on beat one.
How to practise Thinking Out Loud
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
D (x-x-0-2-3-2, beginner) → G (3-2-0-0-0-3, beginner) → A (x-0-2-2-2-0, beginner) → Em (0-2-2-0-0-0, beginner) → Bm (x-2-4-4-3-2, intermediate, needs a barre) → F#m (2-4-4-2-2-2, intermediate, needs a barre)
4 of the 6 shapes are open chords, so start there and leave Bm until the others change cleanly.
Drill the changes this sheet actually uses
D → G4×G → A3×A → Bm2×Bm → A2×
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
- Devery section
- GVerse, Chorus
- Aevery section
- Bmevery section
- F#mChorus
- EmPre-Chorus
Climb the tempo ladder
Start at 47 BPM and move up only when a full pass is clean: 47 → 59 → 71 → 79 BPM. The tempo marked on this sheet is 79 BPM, and the last step is the one that always feels like a jump. Stay at 71 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 Thinking Out Loud 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
D G A Bm F#m Em
4 of 6 stay open
Fret 1
C# F# Ab Bbm Fm Ebm
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 2
C F G Am Em Dm
5 of 6 stay open
Fret 3
B E F# Abm Ebm C#m
1 of 6 stay open
Fret 4
Bb Eb F Gm Dm Cm
1 of 6 stay open
Fret 5
A D E F#m C#m Bm
3 of 6 stay open
Fret 6
Ab C# Eb Fm Cm Bbm
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 7
G C D Em Bm Am
5 of 6 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 Thinking Out Loud clicks, these use the closest set of shapes, so the chords you just learned keep working.
More beginner songs to learn after this one: Sweater Weather, Payphone, The Scientist, 505.
These chords across the songbookHow often each chord in Thinking Out Loud 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.
323bars of this chord across the songbook
58songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 52×.
509bars of this chord across the songbook
77songs use this shape
Most often followed by D, 89×.
134bars of this chord across the songbook
24songs use this shape
Most often followed by D, 19×.
84bars of this chord across the songbook
17songs use this shape
Most often followed by A, 13×.
13bars of this chord across the songbook
6songs use this shape
Most often followed by D, 4×.
155bars of this chord across the songbook
43songs use this shape
Most often followed by C, 27×.