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Home ❯ Songs ❯ (traditional) ❯

My Old Kentucky Home, Goodnight

by (traditional) • Lesson #238 • May 17, 2019

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Editor’s notes

Hey friends! In this lesson I’ll teach you how to play the fingerstyle introduction to “My Old Kentucky Home, Goodnight”. This is a traditional song, though you may have heard the excellent cover by John Prine. I’ll teach you the three chords (including the variations needed for each), explain the alternating bass notes your right thumb will need to play, talk about the hammer-ons you’ll add, and break down the fingerstyle one phrase at a time. This one took me a few weeks to get comfortable with, but patience and practice paid off – and I’m excited to share these notes with you.

  • 0:00 Playthrough & lesson overview
  • 1:34 Chord shapes needed
  • 7:08 Right thumb alternating bass notes
  • 9:18 Adding left-hand hammer-ons
  • 12:10 Tip: break it into phrases!
  • 13:58 Melody, part 1 & 2
  • 19:12 Melody, parts 3 & 4
  • 21:50 Farewell

Here’s a few recordings of this song, in case you’re looking for inspiration! My version is modeled after John Prine’s cover, but I wanted to include some other takes on it as well.

John Prine (Fingerstyle Guitar)

Dan C Holloway (Fingerstyle Guitar)

Tom Roush (Full Band Performance)

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