Blessed Assurance is a popular Christian hymn composed by Phoebe Palmer Knapp and written by Fanny Crosby. We’ll first look at the chords you can use for this song, learn the melody and finally look at a finger style guitar arrangement.
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 G Major chord, you use the:
- 2nd finger on the 6th string, 3rd fret
- 1st finger on the 5th string, 2nd fret
- 3rd finger on the 2nd string, 3rd fret
- 4th finger on the 1st string, 3rd fret
- Circles represent open strings
- On some other chords, X means to avoid the string
You can check this link for more on how to read guitar notation symbols.
Chords for Blessed Assurance in G Major
The chords you can use for this song are G Major, C Major, E minor, A Major, D Major, and A minor.
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 other resources on chords:
- What are the first chords you should learn on guitar?
- 6 tips to get better at switching between chords on guitar
Blessed Assurance – Melody with tabs and chords
The sheet music below includes the tabs and chords which are meant to be played as separate parts. We’ll look at how to connect these parts later in the arrangement section of this post.
You can refer to this simple guide to understanding music symbols if needed.
Lyrics
Verse 1
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
born of his Spirit, washed in his blood.
Chorus:
This is my story, this is my song,
praising my Savior all the day long.
This is my story, this is my song,
praising my Savior all the day long.
Verse 2
Perfect communion, perfect delight,
visions of rapture now burst on my sight.
Angels descending bring from above
echoes of mercy, whispers of love. (Chorus)
Verse 3
Perfect submission, all is at rest.
I in my Savior am happy and bless’d,
watching and waiting, looking above,
filled with his goodness, lost in his love. (Chorus)
Reference: Blessed Assurance. hymnary.org
Blessed Assurance – Guitar Arrangement
In this section, we are essentially connecting the melody and chords together using a finger picking method of playing. If needed, check out this post to learn how to finger pick on guitar.
If you like this style of playing, you can learn more about how to connect a melody and chords on guitar.
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Want to learn more songs? Check out the sheet music with guitar tabs resource on this site.
All the best,
JG
