PlaysoloistStringsGuitarSongsOh! Susanna

guitar song · Strings

Oh! Susanna Guitar Tab

Composer
Stephen Foster
Year
1848
Key
C
Time
4/4
Tempo
116 BPM
Difficulty
Beginner · ★
First note
C4

Oh! Susanna on guitar

The full melody, rendered as six-string guitar tab in standard tuning you can read on screen or print for the stand — free, and never truncated.

Tuning: E A D G B e (standard) · Strum: D DU DU

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Lyrics

Bar 1 — I come from Alabama with my banjo on my knee

Bar 5 — I'm goin' to Louisiana, my true love for to see

Bar 10 — Oh! Susanna, oh don't you cry for me

Bar 12 — for I come from Alabama with my banjo on my knee

Stephen Foster, 1848 — public domain.

How to practise this on guitar

Oh! Susanna is in C and the tab opens on C4 — find that fret, settle your hand there, and notice how little it has to move: the arrangement is worked out with a fret-hand position economy, so consecutive notes stay under your fingers instead of leaping up and down the neck. Read the numbers, not the note names: string line plus fret is the whole instruction, and an open string costs you nothing.

Play it well under around 116 BPM with a metronome and let each note ring into the next — the tails under the numbers show you how long. When your take review marks a bar, loop just that bar until the fret-hand shift inside it feels automatic, then rejoin the line. Speed is the last thing you add, never the first. By the numbers, this setting runs 45 notes across 14 bars, from C4 up to A4 in 4/4 time.

Also playable on

The same melody is graded across 7 Playsoloist instruments. See every version, with difficulty and provenance, on the Oh! Susanna cross-instrument hub.

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Play Oh! Susanna — and hear every note graded.

Soloist Guitar reads this six-string guitar tab in standard tuning under the notation and grades your take on-device, note by note — free on iPhone, no ads, no account.

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