House of the Rising Sun Guitar Lesson
Here is a video guitar lesson for the song “House of the Rising Sun.” This is a traditional song. The most famous rendition was performed by The Animals. This song has a very cool chord progression and an interesting 22 bar song structure. I teach this lesson playing fingerstyle on my acoustic guitar, but towards the end of the lesson I show you how to pick the song. I also have suggested picking patterns in the tablature. So you can play this song either on acoustic or electric guitar.
This song is in the key of Am which is the same as C major. In the lesson tab I give you chord numbers, sometimes called Nashville Numbers in the key of C. The chords and chord numbers in the key are normally I-C ii-Dm iii-Em IV-F V-G vi-Am. However, it is interesting to note that the ii chord and the iii chord are “majorized” in “House of the Rising Sun.” So the ii-Dm and the iii-Em are II-D and III-E in this song. This majorization of the ii and iii chords gives the chord progression a more interesting harder edge in my opinion. You can use this trick to write your own interesting chord progressions. Notice how the Roman numerals became uppercase to represent that the chords are now major.
This song is in the key of Am which is the same as C major. In the lesson tab I give you chord numbers, sometimes called Nashville Numbers in the key of C. The chords and chord numbers in the key are normally I-C ii-Dm iii-Em IV-F V-G vi-Am. However, it is interesting to note that the ii chord and the iii chord are “majorized” in “House of the Rising Sun.” So the ii-Dm and the iii-Em are II-D and III-E in this song. This majorization of the ii and iii chords gives the chord progression a more interesting harder edge in my opinion. You can use this trick to write your own interesting chord progressions. Notice how the Roman numerals became uppercase to represent that the chords are now major.