PlaysoloistStringsGuitarSongsThe Wild Rover

guitar song · Strings

The Wild Rover Guitar Tab

Composer
Traditional
Year
Key
C
Time
3/4
Tempo
126 BPM
Difficulty
Beginner · ★
First note
C4

The Wild Rover 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

eBGDAEVerseC1C131C200C030F1F133eBGDAEC303G7130G7003C1C11C131eBGDAEC200C030F1F101C303G7130eBGDAEG7003C101ChorusG73G73G700G70C00eBGDAEC030F1F101C3C301F02F22eBGDAEG700G703C1C1

Lyrics

Bar 1 — I've been a wild rover for many's the year

Bar 6 — and I've spent all my money on whiskey and beer

Bar 11 — but now I'm returning with gold in great store

Bar 16 — and I never will play the wild rover no more

Bar 20 — And it's no, nay, never

Bar 25 — no, nay, never no more

Bar 28 — will I play the wild rover

Bar 32 — no, never, no more

Trad. Irish, 17th c. — public domain.

How to practise this on guitar

The Wild Rover 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 126 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 79 notes across 36 bars, from G3 up to G4 in 3/4 time.

Also playable on

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

Keep exploring

Free on the App Store

Play The Wild Rover — 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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