Sister Golden hair by America (the band who brought you “Horse With No Name”) is an excellent song to help familiarize yourself with barre chords and become comfortable playing them and introduce you to some less commonly seen chord voicings. It uses an E-shaped barre chord but at the seventh fret. To accomplish this feat, your index finger must move from the second to the fourth fret.
Sister Golden hair by America (who brought us “Horse With No Name”) provides an ideal lesson on dealing with barre chords as it features numerous minor variations on its down-down-up rhythm pattern. Learn some unconventional chord voicings to add variety and variety to your accompaniment, drawing upon standard chord shapes played higher up the neck and with open strings.
Verse 1
He met an attractive girl with golden blond locks. As we’re using the B to A to E progression to introduce some rhythmic strumming patterns and anticipations (strums played before each beat), you may notice that chords are being held longer than usual to highlight their root notes.
Verse 2
An unexpected romance ensues when a man meets a woman with “sister golden hair,” who turns out to be his soul mate! It comes as quite a shock! This song by America – best known for “Horse With No Name” – utilizes many barre chords. Additionally, you’ll learn syncopated primary strumming to emphasize beats 2, 4, and 5. Additionally, anticipatory shifts into your rhythm can add extra interest without adding strain or burden to your playing.
Verse 3
Once you’ve mastered the introduction to “Sister Golden Hair,” the verses for this song should be easy. At the same time, you will add additional chord changes, which is simple enough. One slight difficulty may arise due to playing the B chord in an A-shaped barre form rather than an open string form; this makes chord changes somewhat challenging, but simply shifting the index finger should solve any problems.
Verse 4
We will cover a B to A and Fm to Gm progression; once again, treat these chord changes more as anticipations than actual down-up strums for maximum impact – something which you will hear even more in the accompanying MP3. Notice the lighter downstrokes on beats 2 and 4; this indicates a syncopated primary strum.
Verse 5
Once you’ve mastered the introduction, this verse should come quickly. It provides an ideal opportunity to practice changing chords while adding anticipations into your strumming; on beat 2, we use a lighter “brushed” downstroke instead of full downstrokes – this creates more syncopated rhythms with unique rhythmic effects; likewise, on beat 5, we switch up our chord shape using an A to Fm bar chord shape instead of standard open position A chords.
Verse 6
As in our last lesson with “Horse With No Name,” this approach adds rhythmic movement without becoming overly complicated with barre chord shapes. Instead of switching back and forth between downstrokes on every beat and upstrokes, some chord changes anticipate each other for an organic feel in this verse of our song.
Chorus
This song is an ideal lesson as it will stretch you, introduce nonstandard chord voicings, and add another classic to your repertoire. Although initially challenging, it will quickly feel manageable once past the intro stage. Once you master the B barre chord – simply an A shape moved two frets up the neck – it will become easier to handle the E to A to Gm to A progression that concludes your chorus.
