Traditional
When the Saints Go Marching In chords
When the Saints Go Marching In by Traditional is a beginner song in G, played with no capo. The whole sheet is 3 chords (G, C, D7) across 2 sections: Verse → Verse 2. Every shape is an open chord, so nothing here needs barre strength. It sits at roughly 120 BPM.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: C → G, 4 times.
- Difficulty
- Beginnerno barre needed
- Key
- Gwith no capo
- Tempo
- 120BPM
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 3all open shapes
- Sections
- 2each with its own progression
Chords in When the Saints Go Marching In
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.
Verse♩=120
bright, march tempo, all downstrokes on the beat
GOh when the Csaints go Gmarching D7in,
GOh when the Csaints go Gmarching D7in,
GOh Lord I Cwant to be in Gthat D7number,
GWhen the Csaints go Gmarching D7in.
Verse 2♩=120
GOh when the Csun begins to GD7shine,
GOh when the Csun begins to GD7shine,
GOh Lord I Cwant to be in Gthat D7number,
GWhen the Csun begins to Gshine.
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play When the Saints Go Marching In
The Saints is the standard that every New Orleans brass band still plays, and it is also a three-chord beginner song. That double life is the useful thing about it: you can learn it in an afternoon and then spend years finding new ways to play the same eight bars.
The chords never change, so all the variation lives in the rhythm. At a slow march tempo you play it with flat downstrokes and it sounds like a hymn. Push it past 130 BPM and swing the eighth notes and the same three chords sound like a street parade. Try both: the difference between the two is the single most useful lesson in this sheet.
Once the changes are automatic, the last line is where you improvise. The D7 to G turnaround
is a doorway, not a destination: play a bass walk, drop in a G7 before the C, or leave a bar
of silence and let the singing carry it. That is how a beginner song becomes a jazz song without
a single new chord.
How to practise When the Saints Go Marching In
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 72 BPM and move up only when a full pass is clean: 72 → 90 → 108 → 120 BPM. The recorded feel is around 120 BPM, and the last step is the one that always feels like a jump. Stay at 108 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 When the Saints Go Marching In 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 When the Saints Go Marching In 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 When the Saints Go Marching In 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×.