PlaysoloistStringsGuitarSongsThe Parting Glass

guitar song · Strings

The Parting Glass Guitar Tab

Composer
Traditional
Year
Key
Am
Time
4/4
Tempo
88 BPM
Difficulty
Easy · ★★
First note
E4

The Parting Glass 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

eBGDAEVerseAm03Am12202CG1301313eBGDAEAmG0010313G00003Am1220202eBGDAECG11313Am053030Am12201eBGDAEChorusC35311035Am555875eBGDAEG353353103AmG02003Am1221020eBGDAECG1310130313Am053030Am122

Lyrics

Bar 1 — Of all the money that e'er I had

Bar 4 — I spent it in good company

Bar 6 — and all the harm that e'er I've done

Bar 8 — alas it was to none but me

Bar 10 — So fill to me the parting glass

Bar 12 — and drink a health whate'er befalls

Bar 14 — then gently rise and softly call

Bar 16 — good night and joy be to you all

Trad. Irish/Scottish, 17th c. — public domain.

How to practise this on guitar

The Parting Glass is in Am and the tab opens on E4 — 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 88 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 103 notes across 17 bars, from G3 up to C5 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 The Parting Glass cross-instrument hub.

Keep exploring

Free on the App Store

Play The Parting Glass — 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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