Summertime (Billie Holiday) Guitar Lesson with TAB

Summertime Guitar Lesson + TAB
In this guitar lesson, we take Billie Holiday's version of Summertime and develop a one acoustic guitar arrangement!


Summertime | TAB (capo 1)


The most covered song of all time with 25.000 versions recorded -Summertime. Let’s take the “original” and turn it into a one-guitar arrangement.

To understand the chords, we start with a simple 16-bar minor blues, try playing this first.

If you want to play along with Billie, put a capo on fret 1.

Summertime TAB, idea 1.

The alternating bass line is imperative. The next step is to change the Am7/E to an E chord, let’s make it E7b9 as that is what the IIIx chord naturally extends to.

Next, we change to a dim7 chord a tone down instead as it is the same as a dom7b9, so E7b9 becomes Ddim7.

Ddim7, Fdim7, Abdim7, and Bdim7 are the same chord, we chose Bdim7.

Next, we play an Am with its m3rd in the bass and get a C6 chord.

Put it all together and you’ve got Am7Bdim7C6Bdim7. This is what Billie Holiday’s chords are (a semitone up).

Here’s all this in one guitar arrangement.

Summertime TAB, idea 2.


Play this as barre chords and it could be this:

Summertime TAB, idea 3.

If you want to play in Billie Holiday’s original key, play what you see above a semitone up.



Summertime TAB | Related Pages


Summertime | Chords + Lyrics

Summertime chords lesson.

You can learn to play Summertime by Billie Holiday using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, and the original recording.

Bbm7 F7b9/C | Db6 F7b9/C | Bbm7 F7b9/C | Db6 F7b9/C |
Summertime and the living is easy…


Five similar tunes | Chords + Lyrics

When you can play Summertime's chords, try these five tunes from the songbook.


Billie Holiday tunes

Billie Holiday was the first jazz singer to make Summertime famous. It is her chords we study here.

As the first female jazz singer to record in the 30s, Billie Holiday is up there with the greats who defined the genre of Jazz.

Her hits include Summertime, Blue Moon, Solitude, Pennies From Heaven, and the controversial Strange Fruit.


Billie Holiday on the web

Listen to Billie Holiday on Spotify.


Ella Fitzgerald tunes

Ella Fitzgerald sang Summertime.

Ella Fitzgerald released 61 studio albums and 25 live albums between 1936 and 1989. Crowned the First Lady Of Song, she is recognized for performing and recording most of the Great American Songbook.

Before this, she pioneered scat-singing in the 40s as a devoted Bebop singer.


Ella Fitzgerald on the web

Listen to Ella Fitzgerald on Spotify.


About me | Dan Lundholm

Dan Lundholm wrote this guitar lesson about Summertime chords.

This guitar lesson by Dan Lundholm featuring TAB covers Summertime. Discover more about him and how you can learn guitar with Spytunes.

Most importantly, find out why you should learn guitar through playing tunes, not practising scales, and studying theory in isolation.


Follow Spytunes

GET IN TOUCH