Here’s a quick walk through for Scotland the Brave in guitar tab, chords and standard notation.   To make the chords easy for the beginning guitarist, I’ve transcribed the song in the key of A major.

The main guitar chords used in this song are A major, D major and E major.  In measure 12, you will find one occurrence of the B7 chord.

Below you will find some big chord diagrams for the A, D, E and B7 chords. These diagrams show you the appropriate fingerings to use.

The “X” symbol means you do not strum the indicated string.  An “O” means you do strum the indicated open string.  Your fret-hand fingers are numbered 1-4 from index to pinkie.

 

 

 

 

Here’s a Tip for Learning the Melody to Scotland the Brave

Before you begin to learn the melody for any song, there is a simple thing you can do to make it easier to learn the song.

What Do You Do?

Simply play the scale fingerings that are used for the melody a few times.  By doing this, you will see which notes are used in the song.  Then, all you need is to learn the order that the notes occur.  This will really help you to make sense of the song.

Another big advantage to this method is you will also see the most practical fingerings for the melody.

The melody for Scotland the Brave is performed by using two different fingerings for the A major scale.   Here are the two A major scale fingerings…

 

If you need a quick primer on how to play guitar scales, read this blog post –> A quick and easy way to play major scales in every key on guitar.

So there you go.  Here`s the link to the PDF for the guitar tab, chords and standard notation for Scotland the Brave.

Have fun playing Scotland the Brave on guitar!  If you are ready for a fast and simple way to learn the most common guitar chords, check out my book Guitar Essentials: Chord Master Expanded Edition.