You Are My Sunshine | Easy 3 Chord Guitar Song

This is an easy 3 chord song, which is perfect for beginners, as it gives you a chance to practice changing chords in the key of E. These are simple chords to learn, and due to the repetition of the chords in the song, it allows you to get familiar with them faster.

First I will go over the chords with you, and then we will go through the lyrics to find out where the chords fit. Because it is a 3-chord pattern throughout the entire song, it makes it really easy to memorize. After a short time, you will be able to play this song by yourself without needing to look at the tabs for reference.

3 Easy Chords to Learn

1st Chord - E Chord

The first chord is a standard "folk style" E chord. You will be playing all the strings. Start off by placing your 1st finger on the 1st fret of the 3rd string. while your 2nd and 3rd fingers are next to each other on the 5th and 4th strings.

2nd chord - A Chord

One of the most common ways to play this chord is to put your 3rd finger on the 2nd string 2nd fret, and your 2nd finger on the 3rd string 2nd fret, and then your 1st finger on the 4th string 2nd fret. 

I usually play the A chord with my 1st finger pressing down on 2 strings on the 2nd fret for string 3 and string 4, with my 2nd finger on that 2nd string 2nd fret. I call this my '2 Finger A'.

But feel free to choose whatever version of this A chord works best for you.

3rd Chord - B7 chord

This is the most challenging of all of the chords in this song to play as it uses 4 fingers. If you would like more help with playing the B7 chord, click here for help.

However, don't panic and give up right away, this chord is not all that terribly hard. With a little practice, you will be just fine!

The way to play this chord is by placing your 2nd finger on the 2nd fret 5th string, your 1st finger on the 4th string 1st fret, next put your 3rd finger on the 3rd string 2nd fret, and lastly your 4th finger on the 1st string 2nd fret.

Walk-Through Practice Session

Now that we have gone over all of the chords, let's do a practice walk-through together to see where the chords fit with the lyrics. To jump to this walk-through in my video lesson, click here!

We will be playing one simple strum for every measure of the song.

Strum Pattern

I would now suggest changing the strum pattern so that it follows every beat of the song.
After doing this until you feel comfortable playing this style, the next step for when you do the play-along is to hit the bass note and then strum 3 times for 4 total.

It's ok if at first you don't just hit the bass note but hit the bass area ( in other words, you hit a few notes together at the same time). That is fine as you are just learning.

Let's go through the chords and their bass notes. The bass note for the E chord is the Low E. try doing that strum a few times until it gets easier for you.

For the A chord, you want to hit the 5th string as the bass note. It's ok if you struggle to hit it and it doesn't sound as clean as you'd like. Keep working on it until you get it where you want it to sound!

Now for the B7 chord, you use the same 5th string. Now, if you struggle with this, try doing this chord without the pinky finger for a period of time, and then later on as you get the hang of it, add it back in.

Play-Along Section

For the play-along section, I changed the strum a little bit to make it a little more advanced. Go ahead and check it out here to listen to the strum I did.

So try a practice session on your own before you move on to playing with me for the play-along section. Do each bass note and 3 strums at a slow rate of speed, and do the chord changes. Take your time, this will benefit you not just for this song, but for learning many other songs as well. Get it to an 80% range of doing this successfully and then progress to the play-along.

I hope this helped you out, if you need more assistance click on the link below!