Channel: New Secret Guitar Teacher

Category: Film & Animation

Tags: sweet child of mineriffhow to playelectricchord sequencesecret guitar teacherchordssweet child o minelead guitarsecretexplainedguitarguns n rosesguns 'n rosesnick minnionteacherintrolickchordchord progressionsecretguitarteacherguns and roses

Description: Sample video from the Secret Guitar Teacher: secretguitarteacher.com Nick teaches you how to play the iconic opening riffs to Guns 'n Roses Sweet Child of Mine and explains how these notes connect to the underlying chords to create such a great hook for this classic song. Here's the abridged video transcript: Here’s a quick look at how to play the intro of this famous song and a brief explanation of how the riffs relate to the underlying chords to produce such an effective hook. The guitars are down-tuned a semitone on the record, but I am going to demonstrate in standard tuning. Just remember to down tune if you want to play along with the record. Here is the chord sequence: To get the feel of this sequence you can just strum these chords in open position To play the main riff it will help first to separate out the part of the riff that changes… …from the part that repeats. The part that changes is simply the first note of each chod change and this note closely follows the chords. So, for the first two bars we use the root note of the D chord…which we find up here at fret 12 on the D string, but for the C chord it’s very awkward to use the root note in the same way so sensibly, Slash uses the third instead – the E note. No problem using the G note over the G chord. Then it’s back to the D for the last two bars. So that’s the easy bit – simply following the notes D E G and back to D. Now let’s take a look at the rest of the riff – the bit that doesn’t change. Looking at the notes as used over the D chord we can see that we have the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes from the D major scale – D, F# and A – the three notes that make up a D major chord. Then we add the fourth note of the scale, G at the 12th fret on the G string and at the 15th fret on the top string. So, I think a good way to remember these notes is to think of the way a D sus 4 chord is often used in Rock music and if you compare the sound of that with the sound of the riff, you can hear the similarity quite clearly. Keeping this understanding in mind as you learn to play the riff will help you learn it quicker and remember it better. Start with the octave D then imagine you are tracing the D major chord shape back down to the fifth note like this now you are going to suspend the chord by playing the 4th note G repeating it an octave higher and then back to complete your tracing of the D major shape by playing the 5th again the note A at fret 14 on the G string and then the 3rd – F# at fret 14 on the top and back to the 5th again to link back to the start. These same notes are then played after each of our starting notes that we found in the first part of the lesson like this… Of course, the notes assume different harmonic values as the chords change – over the C chord quite a bit of tension builds up as we hear the F# note as an augmented 4th added to a 6/9 chord. The 6/9 has quite a jazzy ring to it but is a perfectly normal substitute for a major chord – at least in jazz but the augmented 4th definitely adds quite a disturbing sound Then over the G the notes blend a little more conventionally. To make a G major ninth chord or perhaps a G maj7sus2. So, the sequence of harmonies does a great job of leading away from the tonic D chord, creating maximum tension over the C chord and then coming back to resolution via the G and d chords. Good composition! Hope you found that useful and interesting. See you again soon.