PlaysoloistStringsGuitarSongsWayfaring Stranger

guitar song · Strings

Wayfaring Stranger Guitar Tab

Composer
Traditional
Year
Key
Am
Time
4/4
Tempo
84 BPM
Difficulty
Easy · ★★
First note
A3

Wayfaring Stranger 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 -

eBGDAEVerseAm220AmE70303Am12220Dm3213eBGDAEE70220AmE70303Am12220Dm3120eBGDAEAm2003ChorusAmG5353Am50003FG5353eBGDAECE70013AmE700303Am12220eBGDAEDmE73120Am2

Lyrics

Bar 1 — I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger

Bar 3 — I'm trav'ling through this world of woe

Bar 5 — Yet there's no sickness, no toil nor danger

Bar 7 — in that bright land to which I go

Bar 9 — I'm going there to see my father

Bar 11 — I'm going there no more to roam

Bar 13 — I'm only going over Jordan

Bar 15 — I'm only going over home

Trad. American spiritual, 19th c. — public domain.

How to practise this on guitar

Wayfaring Stranger is in Am and the tab opens on A3 — 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 84 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 69 notes across 17 bars, from G3 up to A4 in 4/4 time.

Also playable on

The same melody is graded across 6 Playsoloist instruments. See every version, with difficulty and provenance, on the Wayfaring Stranger cross-instrument hub.

Keep exploring

Free on the App Store

Play Wayfaring Stranger — 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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