Ready for a classic Eagles tune? Here's "Peaceful Easy Feeling" for you to learn.

In this lesson, we'll learn how to play Peaceful Easy Feeling by Eagles on the acoustic guitar.

This easygoing song was on The Eagles' iconic debut album back in 1972. It's a great song to add to your repertoire. Even Grade 1 beginners can play it!

To keep the chords simple, we're learning it in the key of D. The original recording is in E, but that requires barre chords. To play along with The Eagles, just pop your capo on the second fret!

🚨 Struggling with your rhythm? Play along with this song and hundreds more with the JustinGuitar Lessons & Songs App! It's a fantastic tool to accelerate your learning, and helps you avoid bad habits as a beginner.

This is an excellent campfire song, but you can also revisit it later with different rhythmic approaches. Let's start simple and explore the basic chords and strumming. :)

Peaceful Easy Feeling by Eagles: Chord Progressions

For the intro, you play four bars of D. The chord progression for the verse mainly alternates between D and G chords. This is a great time to put your One-Minute Changes exercise into action! The progression is D G D G; D G A A.

The chord progression for the chorus is similar, but we’ll need an Em chord too. It goes G G D D; G G A A; D Em G A; D D D D.

🎸 Chord Recap: Want to learn or recap how to play the D, G, A, and Em chords? Check out my Grade 1 of my Beginner's Course. :)

Peaceful Easy Feeling by Eagles: Guitar Strumming

For the strumming, you'll want to find a pattern that feels best for you. If you need to, just keep it simple and focus on keeping your strumming hand moving consistently.

I love strumming even eighth notes and adding accents (slightly louder strums) on beats 2 and 4:

1  +  2  +  3  +  4  +
D  U  D  U  D  U  D  U

Practice this by muting your strings to ensure your accents are solid and consistent. Make sure you feel nice and relaxed as you strum. :) Once you add it to your chord progression, those accents should be strong enough to hear over your chords.

Expand Your Dynamic Range On Guitar!

Now let's explore different approaches to the rhythm for this Eagles song. Varying your rhythm makes a huge difference to your sound – especially if you're playing solo.

On the original recording, there is a guitar doing even eighth notes, but there are other parts that create interest and vary the dynamics.

💡 Two Strumming Patterns: Use a different strumming pattern in the verses and choruses to keep things lively and create interest for the listener.

A great idea is to play that even eight-note strumming pattern for the choruses, then switch to Old Faithful strumming for the verses. The key to expanding your dynamic range is to relax into your rhythm, experiment, and have fun!

Another option is to pick out bass notes on beats 1 and 3. Over D, we alternate between strings 4 and 5: we hit string 4 on beat 1 then string 5 on beat 3. On G, we move between strings 6 and 5 (in that order), and on A, we use strings 5 and 6. The rhythm is:

1  +  2  +  3  +  4  +
B     D U   B     D  U

There are loads of other ways to vary the dynamics – you should definitely explore your own ideas. :)

I hope you love playing this song! There are plenty more Eagles songs on the site, so don’t forget to check them out. See you for more real soon. :)

🎵 Play Peaceful Easy Feeling with my guitar app, and learn faster. If you haven't already, try it out for free!