Take Me Home Country Roads

Country Rock Song in G Major
Module 7

🧭 Overview

Take Me Home, Country Roads is one of the most recognizable songs ever written — and that’s what makes it such a great fiddle lesson. You probably already have the melody in your head. All you need is 7 notes from the G pentatonic scale to put it on your fiddle.

🎶 Practice Content

Audio

 

Sheet music

 

Click here to download the sheet music

🪜 Learning Steps

Warmup: G Pentatonic Scale

You only need seven notes for this whole tune: D0-1-3-A0-1-3-E0. Play them up and down until they feel automatic.

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Sing Then Play

Before playing any phrase, sing it first. The left-hand notes are simple — the rhythmic feel is the real challenge. Singing each phrase makes the rhythm click in a way that reading tabs alone never will. If you don’t feel like singing out loud, hum it or whistle it.

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Learning the Phrases

Work through each chunk: sing → play → loop.

Two passes each. Don’t worry about chaining phrases together — just get each one solid on its own first.

Verse

Chunk 1 — “Almost heaven,” | D0-0-1-0
Chunk 2 — “West Virginia” | D1-0-1-3
Chunk 3 — “Blue Ridge Mountains,” | A0-0-A1-0
Chunk 4 — “Shenandoah River” | D1-1-1-0-D1-3
Chunk 5 — “Life is old there,” | D0-0-D1-0
Chunk 6 — “Older than the trees” | D1-3-3-A1-A1
Chunk 7 — “Younger than the mountains,” | A0-0-0-0-A1-0
Chunk 8 — “Blowing in the breeze” | D1-3-3-A0-D3

Chorus

Chunk 9 — “Country roads,” | D3-A0-A1
Chunk 10 — “Take me home” | A1-D3-A0
Chunk 11 — “To the place” | A1-0-D3
Chunk 12 — “I belong” | A1-3-E0
Chunk 13 — “West Virginia,” | E0-A1-A3-1
Chunk 14 — “Mountain mama” | A1-D3-A0-1
Chunk 15 — “Take me home,” | A1-0-D3
Chunk 16 — “Country roads” | D3-A0-D3

Note: For chunk 12 (“I belong”), you can use your 4th finger on the A string for the E note — or just use open E if you’re still getting comfortable with 4th finger.

🚀 Further Learning

Related Lessons

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Leave a Reply

12 responses to “Take Me Home Country Roads”

  1. I loved learning this song. I went ahead and tried to figure out the music for the bridge that starts “I hear her voice….” and I think I was able to pull it together. It’s a beautiful song and great to play with strummachine.
    I do have a question. Some of the lines beg for a fill between the long notes and so I find myself just playing the last note again to fill the space. I would love to learn how to create a good fill for songs beyond just playing the last note again. Any suggestions or is there a lesson on this in Fiddlehed?

    1. i don’t have the sheet music. I just noodled around till i figured it out. Absolutely no guarantees it’s correct, but sounded right to me.
      I hear her voice In the morning hours she calls me – D3-3-3-2–D3-A0-1-1-1-0-1-0-D3
      Radio reminds me of my home far away – AL2-L2-L2-L2-L2-1-0-D3-A0-1-1-0
      Driving down the road I get a feeling – A1-1-1-1-0–A0-0-0-D3-3
      that I should have been home yesterday, yesterday – D3-3-3-3-3-3-A0-A1-0-0-1-L2

  6. hey Jason thank you for the lesson , that is a beautiful song , ,great listen, to you sing the, song,an the Pentatonic scales, I could hear the dancing in the Pentatonic scales on the tune, yes the chunks really helps ,thankful and Grateful, for Lesson an you Singing,

  7. You mentioned if we found which of four types of fiddlers we were you per your description you would send us individual lessons, ways to practice. Maybe I missed it, but I didn’t see it on the bottom. Thanks. A nice lesson. Good for me as I have trouble hearing and finding corresponding notes on the fiddle. I also liked the transposing lesson on Amazing Grace.

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