Our House

About This Lesson

In today’s lesson I’ll teach you how to play Our House, the 1970 classic from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. While the artist recording of this song is piano-driven, I’ve worked out a guitar-friendly arrangement using the Key of C chord family. This makes things incredibly accessible, while still capturing the distinctive vibe of the CSNY recording. Remember to add a capo 9th fret if you wish to play along with CSNY using the chords I show… but even if you don’t use a capo (like me) things still sound great. I think you’ll dig this one… let’s get into it!

• 0:00 Lesson Overview
• 2:17 Verse, part 1
• 5:21 Verse, part 2
• 9:04 Chorus
• 11:01 Fingerstyle & Strum Tips
• 15:45 “Play Your Love Songs” Riff
• 18:59 Farewell & Final Tips

Quick Links

• Lyric & chords (Key of C, what I teach)
• Lyric & chords (Key of A)
• Song Wikipedia page
• Fresh Air Interview with Graham Nash

Practice Notes 5 pages

Lesson Discussion

Extended Video Lessons

Here’s a few extra videos, made in thanks to those supporting me with Premium membership here on my Song Notes website. To those showing your support, you have my true thanks and appreciation — and I hope you find these additional videos helpful!

Play-Along Cover (Simple)

Here’s a play-along cover of the full song, zoomed in, where I use the simple picking pattern (bass → pluck) from start to finish. If your goal is to play the full song, I recommend starting with this approach! As you get comfortable with things, you can introduce some of the more advanced picking (or strumming) patterns I show in the next video just below.

Play-Along Cover (Intermediate)

Here’s me playing the song from start to finish, using bits and pieces of everything I teach in my main lesson. Note, the picking pattern I use throughout this performance changes as the song builds up. I start off very simple (bass → pluck), then get a bit heavier (bass → pluck pluck pluck), and eventually get strummy with things toward the end.

All the picking & strum patterns I use are found on page 4 of my practice notes. I’m also using some more full chord voicings in some cases (e.g. wrapping my left thumb to play the F major) — all of which aren’t required, but sound nice if you’re able to play them.

Transposing to Key of C

In this video I show my real-time process of transposing this song to the Key of C major (from it’s original Key of A). I begin with the progression used by CSNY in their recorded piano version (which I got from this piano tutorial), and use some music theory tips to work out the equivalent notes & chords in the Key of C.

hile this is paint-by-numbers in some respects, there’s also a degree of interpretation & subjectivity at play when it comes to choosing the actual chords I end up using… which I note throughout this video! See my Practical Music Theory course for more info on the notes & chords in each key.

Other Recommended Videos

Apple Commercial Featuring “Our House”

The commercial that inspired this lesson! Hearing this cover immediately won me over. Get your tissues ready, because this one truly pulls at the heartstrings.

Piano Tutorial (using Key of A chords)

Here’s the lesson I used to reference the “official” Key of A chords of the album recording, as part of my transposing process.

Graham Nash Singing “Our House” on Howard Stern (using Key of D chords)

Helpful if you want to see what things look like using Key of D chord family. The pinky stretches make this approach tricky!

“Our House” Cover from The Wildwoods (using Key of C chords)

The only cover I could find that uses the same Key of C approach I use… though note, their approach is slightly different in a few places (e.g. uses Travis-style fingerpicking, uses different chords in a few places).