In this lesson, we’re going to look at Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” (that’s the YouTube link if you want to view there).  It’s a great song and also a pretty easy one to learn.

The neat thing about Ring of Fire is that it only uses three chords, and those chords happen to be the most popular chord progressions known to man.  That progression is called the 1-4-5 chord progression, and it is a staple of Rock n’ Roll, the Blues, Country, and just about every genre.  So let’s jump in and get started.  Further explanation is below the video…

Okay, so “Ring of Fire” was originally written and recorded by Johnny Cash in the Key of G Major, and it uses the 1st, 4th, and 5th chords of that key.  If you want to know more about understanding keys in music, visit the link.  Basically, what you need to understand is this:

Every Key will only have 7 letters.  It will start on the Root, or 1st tone, which is the name of the Key (i.e. the Key G Major starts on the note G).  Every key will then go thru 7 notes until it returns to the 1, or 8th tone called the octave.  Octaves are just groups of 8 notes that repeat the same pattern for as many spaces as our instrument can match.  On guitar we have at most 4 octaves, more on piano.

Anyhow…G Major starts on G and returns to G using our musical alphabet notes (A-G).  So this yields, G – A – B – C – D – E – F# – G.  That’s it!  Every key would follow the same pattern of starting on its key root note and using successive and unique alphabet letters (sometimes needing a sharp #, or flat b), but always going from 1 to 8.  Make sense?

As an example let’s just look at two other keys so you see the pattern.  A Major yields, A – B – C# – D – E – F# – G# – A.  C Major yields, C – D – E – F – G – A – B – C.  Hopefully that shows the pattern.  To understand this see the graphics below, or go through more of the lessons here.  You can always send me an email or leave a comment with questions.

As you can see, a key is formed by first spelling out the 1 position or scale root, then we harmonize the 3rd position below it all the way thru, and lastly, the 5th position of the scale is then harmonized below the 1st and 3rd positions, until it repeats again back under our octave.  These stacks are known as guitar triads or chords.

Since we have 7 tones, and now 7 stacks of 3 notes (triads, which are the minimum 3 notes we must have to make a chord), we have 7 chords.  That’s our key.  Every key only has 7 chords, and the qualities of those chords relative to their positions are always the same.  So the 1-4-5 chords will always be Major chords.  The 2nd, 3rd, and 6th chords will always be minor chords, and the 7th chord is always a minor chord, with a flattened 5th note.

That might be a bit confusing, but understanding guitar chords doesn’t take too much time.  Hopefully this lesson has added a little clarity and we learned a great song in the key of G Major by Johnny Cash.  I love “Ring of Fire” and glad I finally got around to covering it and teaching it to your for guitar!

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Wishing you the best in your learning,

Andrew