Amazing Grace by John Newton is one of the most popular hymns. This lesson covers the guitar chords, melody with guitar tabs, and a finger-style guitar arrangement of this song.

Grab your guitar and let’s get started!

How to read the guitar chord charts

To clarify how to read the chord charts, the top horizontal line represents the high E string and the bottom horizontal line represents the low E string. The vertical lines separate each fret. The numbers in the blue dots tell you which fingers to use on the fretting hand.

For example, on the C Major chord, you use the:

1st finger on the 2nd string, 1st fret
2nd finger on the 4th string, 2nd fret
3rd finger on the 5th string, 3rd fret
Circles represent open strings
X means to avoid the string

You can check this link for more on how to read guitar notation symbols.

Amazing Grace guitar chords

In the key of C Major, the basic chords for Amazing Grace are C Major, F Major, A minor, D Major, and G Major. You can click on the chords with links to learn different ways of playing that chord.

Try the following chords one at a time until you feel comfortable switching between them. These chords will be written above the melody in the next section.

Here are some related resources on chords:

Amazing Grace guitar tabs

For the sheet music below, keep in mind that the melody and chords are meant to be played as separate parts. We’ll look at how to connect these parts later in the arrangement section of this lesson.

If needed, refer to this simple guide to understanding music symbols.

By the way, you can get all the PDFs of this song below.

Amazing Grace – PDFs

Amazing Grace melody with tabs and chords

Amazing Grace lyrics with chords

Reference: Amazing Grace. HymnSite.com

Amazing Grace guitar chords variation

Here are some 7th chords you can use to enhance the chord progression to Amazing Grace. These chords will be shown in the following lead sheet with the melody.

You can check out this lesson to learn the essential 7th chords on guitar.

Amazing Grace tabs with chord variations

Here is the sheet music for this song including the chord variations we looked at in the previous section.

Amazing Grace – PDFs

Amazing Grace guitar arrangement

In this section, we are essentially connecting the melody and chords together using a finger-style method of playing. If needed, check out this lesson to learn how to finger pick on guitar.

The numbers next to some notes on the top staff indicate which fingers to use on the fretting hand.

Amazing Grace – PDFs