Scarborough Fair – guitar chords, tabs and finger-style arrangement

Scarborough Fair is a traditional English song that has been passed along for centuries with an anonymous composer. One of the features of this song is that it’s written in the Dorian mode.

This lesson covers the chords, sheet music for the melody including guitar tabs, and also a finger-style arrangement.

Grab your guitar and let’s get started!

How to read the guitar chord charts

To clarify how to read the chord charts in the next section, 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 A minor chord, you use the:

• 1st finger on the 2nd string, 1st fret
• 2nd finger on the 4th string, 2nd fret
• 3rd finger on the 3rd string, 2nd 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.

Scarborough Fair chords

In the key of A minor, the basic chords for Scarborough Fair are A minor, G Major, G/B, C Major, and D 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.

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

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
• How to play chord inversions on guitar
  

Scarborough Fair guitar tabs

This section shows you the melody of the song with guitar tabs and the chords written above the staff. 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.

When playing the chords part, continue playing the same chord when switching to a measure that doesn’t show one. For example, you would play A minor for the first two measures.

You can refer to this simple guide to understanding music symbols if needed.

See the following section to learn a finger-style guitar arrangement of this song.

Scarborough Fair guitar arrangement

In this section, we are essentially connecting the melody and chords together using a finger-style method of playing. The numbers next to some notes on the top staff indicate which fingers to use on the fretting hand.

If needed, check out this lesson to learn how to finger pick on guitar.

If you like this style of playing, you can check out this lesson to learn how to connect a melody and chords on guitar.

📘 Get the free guitar practice guide here!

Want to learn more songs? Check out the sheet music with guitar tabs resource on this site.

All the best,

JG Music Lessons

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