Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)

Minimum skill needed to play

You can play this song if you are comfortable with the chords and any basic strumming pattern. The three chords used in this song are simple and very common. There is a lot of breathing room between most chords so this song is great for learning to play simple chord progressions.

Chords and chord transitions

First choose the key you will be playing the song in. Then select different Capo options until "Play shapes in" shows a key you are familiar with and the chords listed in "Chord Shapes" are ones you know. This allows you to play the song using chords and chord shapes you know while the song is in a key you don't know.

Simply click or tap on any Chord shape buttons to see common ways to play each chord in the song. Chord transitions are also displayed to show what chord voicings/shapes make the transition easier.

You can play the chords of the original key using D chord shapes with no capo.

What to watch out for

This song is slow and playing sparse, non-driving strumming patterns is completely fine. However, some of the chords are only played for 1 beat before moving on to the next chord (or returning to the previous chord). These one-beat chords can be playing with a single strum.

For example, the first line of Verse 1 in the key of D major is D, Dsus, D with the Dsus being played for only one beat, or one strum before going back to D. The D chord on the first and second lines should be played continuously to ring out.

How to play this song solo

Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) can feel like a slow, single strum type of song. In order to make the song not drag on through 4 verses, find a medium strumming pattern for the verses and one with a bit more energy for the Chorus. The dynamics of each verse can be changed to match the energy of the room and your voice.

Song structure

The song can be played following this order. Repeat the last Chorus 2 times if desired, with the second one a bit slower and drawn out to emphasize the end of the song.

• Verse 1
• Verse 2
• Chorus
• Verse 3
• Chorus
• Verse 4
• Chorus