Songs · Banjo · Beginner
Amazing Grace
Traditional hymn tune “New Britain” (words by John Newton) · Hymn tune from the early 1800s, set to Newton’s words in The Southern Harmony (1835)
Banjo · bluegrassthree-finger rollsG major3/4 time15 barsopen G tuningstarts with a pickup
Arranged: Teddy Rook Book: the melody with three-finger rolls for 5-string banjo, an octave below our piano version.
Loading the music…
About this piece
A Southern hymn that bluegrass banjo players learn early. The melody note falls on the beat, and the roll fills the space between with open strings that ring, often with the short 5th string. Play the melody notes a little louder than the roll notes. The letters under the tab are the picking fingers: T thumb, I index, M middle.
What it practices
- three-finger rolls in 3/4
- open strings
- a C chord shape
- a pull-off
Chords in this song
Each link opens the chord finder with more ways to play that chord.
Where the notes come from
The melody is the one in our piano arrangement of Amazing Grace, which was checked note by note against the Mutopia Project’s “New Britain” hymn setting (public domain); here it sounds an octave lower, as it does on the banjo, with roll notes added between the melody notes. Our checking script compares the two melodies beat by beat.
How to practice with it
- Listen first. Press Play and follow along. The note being played lights up in the tab, in the notation and on the fretboard, and the chord being played lights up in the row of chord diagrams.
- Learn the chords. Press each diagram to hear it, then practice changing between them slowly.
- Slow it down. Use − and + to set the tempo. 60% is a good place to start; the notes keep their pitch.
- Loop the hard part. Under More…, turn on Loop, pick the bars, and play them a few times in a row. Count-in gives you a bar of clicks before it starts.
Click a bar in the music to start from there. Space plays and pauses. Left-handed? Turn on the left-handed view: the chord diagrams and the fretboard are mirrored to match your instrument. Tab reads the same either way: the top line is always the first (highest) string.