This easy beginner guitar lesson shows you how to play Deep In The Heart Of Texas. This 1941 song is a popular American song that sings the merits of the state of, you guessed it, Texas. The title of the song was borrowed to name a 1942 western film about the restoration of Texas to the United States after the American civil war.
In this lesson you'll learn the chords and a simple strum pattern to play the song in the key of D. The lesson ends with tips on making your performance a little more polished once you've mastered the basics.
Are you ready Cowboy? Let's go, yee-haw!
Chords Used In The Song
This song follows the common I - V chord pattern. It is easy to play in the key of D, with D major and A major chords shown below. If you prefer you can also play it in the key of A, A major and E major chords. Choose whichever pair you are most comfortable with.
Strum Pattern
Remember this is a song for rough and raunchy cowboys so you've got to give it some gusto and swing. You can strum the two-bar pattern “down down up down up down up | down down down up down” shown below, but if you find it too hard use the basic four down strokes pattern. This pattern repeats twice for each line of the song.
The Song
Here are the words and chords to the song for you to sing and play along with. The chords have only been noted for the first verse, the exact same pattern repeats all the way through the rest of the song.
D
The stars at night - are big and bright
A
Deep in the heart of Texas
The prairie sky - is wide and high
D
Deep in the heart of Texas
The Sage in bloom - is like perfume
Deep in the heart of Texas
Reminds me of - the one I love
Deep in the heart of Texas
The cowboys cry - ki-yip-pie-yi
Deep in the heart of Texas
The rabbits rush - around the brush
Deep in the heart of Texas
The coyotes wail - along the trail
Deep in the heart of Texas
The doggies bawl - and bawl and bawl
Deep in the heart of Texas
Performance Tips
You can embellish the song with these performance tips, why not give them a try when you've mastered the basic version.
Tapping/clapping - You can liven up your performance with four swift taps on your guitar table at the end of each verse line. This is also a great opportunity for some audience participation. Encourage your audience to clap heartily in time with your tapping and join in to sing each "Deep in the heart of Texas".
Bass strum - Give your strumming a jaunty touch by picking only the bass string of the chords on beat one. For the D and A chords these are the fourth and fifth strings respectively and for A and E it's the fifth and sixth strings. Resume the normal strum pattern on beat two.
1 comment:
Thank you for this song lesson. As a beginner I'm always looking for new and easy songs to try
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