Have you ever seen those guitar infomercials promising you can learn to play in minutes? It might seem unbelievable, but the truth is, you can learn a song quickly. The real challenge isn’t just copying chords; it’s understanding what you’re playing and building skills you can use for other songs. Simply mimicking someone else’s playing rarely leads to true learning. It’s much more effective to grasp the “why” behind the “how” right from the start.
This lesson, the first in our “Easy Songs for Beginners” series at guitarplayers.net, is designed to do just that. We’ll teach you to play the classic song “Horse With No Name” while also exploring the American guitar chords and musical concepts within it. This way, you’ll not only learn a song but also gain valuable knowledge that you can apply to countless others. After mastering the basics, we’ll spice things up with strumming variations and even a simple bass line. In a follow-up lesson, “Adding Some Personal Touches,” we’ll dive into rhythm riffs and lead guitar parts, ranging from easy to more challenging. Learning guitar should be an enjoyable journey, and we’re here to make sure it is!
The Bare Essentials of American Guitar Chords
Imagine stepping right up and becoming a guitar hero overnight for just $49.99! Sounds too good to be true, right? To get started with this lesson, we’re going to assume you’ve at least held a guitar before and are a bit familiar with basic guitar terms. If you’re brand new to the guitar, it’s best to begin with our “Absolute Beginners Chords lesson.” Focus on learning the E minor chord – it’s the first one introduced and all you need for now!
The song we’re tackling is “Horse With No Name,” a hit by the iconic American band America, written by Dewey Bunnell. The entire song is built around just two chords. You already know one – E minor. The other is a chord we can analyze and discuss in detail, expanding your understanding of American guitar chords:
The E minor (Em) chord is indeed one of the easiest American guitar chords for beginners. But how did Dewey Bunnell come up with that second chord? While we can’t know for sure, it’s likely it was either a happy accident or simply exploring the fretboard. Perhaps he stumbled upon it and thought, “Hey, that sounds pretty cool!”
Both chords are quite simple to play. Em requires just two fingers on the second fret of the D and A strings. The second chord, often called Dadd6add9, is just a slight finger shift. You move those two fingers to the next two outer strings – the G and low E strings. The change is smooth and intuitive. Use the finger on the second fret of the A string (likely your index or middle finger) to fret the second fret of the low E string. Similarly, shift the finger on the second fret of the D string to the second fret of the G string. Think of it as a mini finger exercise!
(We’ll delve deeper into the mystery of “Dadd6add9” later in the section “What is that chord really?”)
The song’s rhythm is in 4/4 time, meaning four beats per measure, and the chords change every measure. For starters, try a simple downstroke on each of the four beats, or for a bit of variation, downstrokes on beats one, two, and four. “Horse With No Name” has a moderate tempo – not too fast, not too slow. When learning, always start slow to ensure smooth chord changes while maintaining a steady beat. A metronome is a fantastic tool for this.
Here’s a basic chord chart for the verses and chorus:
Horse With No Name by America cheat sheet chords and lyrics
Straightforward, right? Let’s move on and explore how to make it sound even better.
Adding Flavor to Your American Guitar Chords
Beginners often focus on chord recognition and finger placement. You need to know the American guitar chords for your song and how to form them. Next comes smooth and clean chord transitions. With “Horse With No Name,” these aspects are quite easy, allowing you to concentrate on your strumming technique.
You might think strumming is simple, but rhythm is incredibly important. It’s not just about keeping time, but also about creating strumming patterns that enhance the song, making it more enjoyable to play and listen to.
It’s “just hitting the strings,” you might say. How complex can it be?
It’s not complex at all when approached thoughtfully from the beginning. The basic rhythm we suggested earlier is just a starting point.
An symbol means strumming upwards, towards your head, and a is strumming down, towards the guitar body.
This pattern works, but it’s quite basic and mainly useful for practicing timing. To get closer to the original song’s feel, we need to incorporate upstrokes and play on the “off-beats.” We’ll work with eighth notes. Instead of counting “1, 2, 3, 4,” we’ll count “1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and…” The tempo (speed of the beat) doesn’t change, but you might perceive it as faster if you’re new to this. Don’t worry, it’s easy to learn.
Here’s a more authentic strumming pattern with chords:
Horse With No Name by America chords strumming pattern alternate
Download MP3
Again, start slowly if this is new. Go as slow as needed to count each beat and place each stroke accurately. You’ll be surprised how quickly you pick it up, even if you’ve never tried upstrokes before.
Adding Depth: Bass and Beyond to American Guitar Chords
Once you’re comfortable with the strumming, we can add a simple bass line to create more depth. It won’t be a complex bass part, but for a beginner, it’s a fantastic way to add texture to your playing.
Here’s how: on the first beat of each measure, strike only the sixth string (the lowest string) – just that string alone. Combine this with the strumming pattern (upstrokes and downstrokes), and it should sound like this: Downstrokes are marked “D” and upstrokes “U” for clarity:
Horse With No Name by America chords strumming example one
Download MP3
From this foundation, you can start to experiment. One technique I enjoy is playing an upstroke on the second beat of the E minor chord close to the bridge (away from the neck) and letting it ring through the rest of the measure:
Horse With No Name by America chords strumming example two
Download MP3
You can also pick individual strings instead of strumming. In this example, the three highest strings are picked with upstrokes on the last one and a half beats of the measure:
Horse With No Name by America chords strumming example three
Download MP3
Once you have a few patterns you like and can play without much thought, you can start mixing and matching – combining “E minor pattern 1” with “Dadd6add9 pattern 4,” and so on. It becomes fun and challenging to discover new combinations.
Even simple songs like “Horse With No Name,” built on fundamental American guitar chords, offer vast creative possibilities if you’re willing to explore. Or, you can simply learn the basic chords and move on. The choice is always yours.
Decoding the Dadd6add9: Exploring American Guitar Chord Theory
Let’s analyze that second chord more closely. If we look at the notes in each string for the Dadd6add9, we find:
As we discussed in “Building Additions and Suspensions,” this chord could be named in several ways. Bm7 (add 4)? D6 (add 9)? Even E9 (sus4)? All are valid interpretations based on the notes present.
The context of the chord within the song (its role in the chord progression) helps determine the most appropriate name. Chord voicing, meaning not just the notes but where they are played on the guitar, is also crucial. Let’s revisit the two chords in “Horse With No Name”:
Let’s determine the key of the song. The easy approach: “It starts and ends on E minor, so it’s in E minor!” That’s a reasonable starting point. Listening to the chords, the Em chord feels like home, the resting point. The Dadd6add9 feels less settled, wanting to resolve. Playing them in reverse confirms this – Dadd6add9 still craves resolution.
After playing the song repeatedly, I hear an F# in the bass as fitting best, more so than D, E, or A as the root. This is a key factor in deciding F# as the root. Building a stack of thirds on F# and comparing it to the chord notes (using “-” for missing notes), we get:
We see the fifth (C#) and ninth (G#) are absent from the six notes in the chord. Instead, we have an added A (the sixth and thirteenth). So, we could call it F#m13 for simplicity, or F#m7 (no 5)(add 4)(add 6) for complete detail. Simpler names are often better for clarity. Chord naming can be debated endlessly!
This raises an interesting point: what if a chord has seven notes, but a guitar only has six strings? Which note do you omit?
Traditionally, the fifth is often left out. However, sometimes even the root is omitted (we’ll explore such chords in future lessons). The practical factor is what notes you can actually fret on the guitar. For example, strumming an open guitar in standard tuning creates an A11 chord – notes E (fifth), A (root), D (eleventh), G (seventh), B (ninth), and E (fifth). The third (C#) is missing, but it sounds complete. A good guideline for 9th, 11th, and 13th chords is to include the seventh and root for a clear identity.
Is understanding all this crucial? Like any knowledge, its value depends on your goals. Next week, we’ll explore how naming the Dadd6add9 as such helps define the modal centers of our harmonies, which is key to creating fills and lead lines. It’s less complicated than it sounds!
As always, please send your questions, comments, and future topic suggestions through the Guitar Forums or email me at [email protected].
Until next week, keep playing!
Peace
Liner Notes on “Horse With No Name”
“A Horse With No Name” by America is a folk-rock classic by Dewey Bunnell, reminiscent of Neil Young’s acoustic style. Ironically, in 1972, it replaced Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” as the number one single in America. This song’s enduring popularity highlights the timeless appeal of simple, well-crafted American guitar chords and songwriting.
