Chords for Sweet Child O' Mine by Guns N' Roses - Riff Guitar Lesson - MasterThatRiff! 29

Hi, welcome to another Master That Riff.
This time we're going to be looking at one of the
all time riffs, Sweet Child O Mine by Guns N' Roses. _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[Db] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [B] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Db] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Ab] _ [B] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Gb] _ _ _ [Db] _ _
_ _ [Ab] _ _ [Db] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Now for this riff we need to tune a half step down.
So what I've got now is E flat _ [Eb] _ _ _ [Db] _ _
[Ab] _ _ _ [B] _ _ _ [Db] _ _
_ _ [G] _ _ [Gb] _ _ on [Bb] _ the
_ _ [Abm] top.
[Eb] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [D] So the Sweet Child O Mine riff is based around a kind of repeating melodic idea.
What
changes each time is our starting note and this is why it's such a catchy riff because
it has a kind of repeated melody or melodic idea through every bar.
So it's 8 bars long.
_ What we'll do is we'll look at [Eb] the first bar.
So what we'll do is start off here 12th fret
of the D string.
_ [Abm] I'm playing that with my first finger.
Now if you ever watch Slash
play this, he tends to play it with his first three fingers.
[Db] Now [Eb] _ _ _
[Db] _ when I'm playing it I tend
to use my fourth finger and it's best to play it with whatever you feel comfortable [A] with.
But what I'm doing initially is 12th fret of the [Db] D string.
_ So that's my starting note.
Now the next note is [Ab] after that.
_ [Db] _ _ _
[Ab] What I'm doing here is 15th fret [Db] of the B string, _
_ [Bb] then
14th fret of the G, _ then 12th of the G, [Gb] _ _ [Dbm] then [Bm] it's 15th fret of the high E, _ then a [C] string
skip down to 14th fret of the G [Gm] string, _ [Eb] then I [Db] do 14th fret of the E string, _ [Gb] and then back
down to that G string [F] again [B] at the 14th fret.
So if I play that slowly we [Eb] have our starting
note.
_ [Db] Then I go. _
_ [Abm] _ _ [Gb] _ _ [B] _ _ _
[Db] _ _ _ _ _ [Bb] _ _
As you [A] can see when I'm playing [Eb] that sometimes I'll mix it up.
Sometimes I
might play that _ _ _ [Db] _ _ _ with my [G] first finger, then the B string with my third finger, [Eb] or I might
use my fourth finger.
_ _ [C] Sometimes I'm not really thinking about it and the fingers [Eb] just do
what they want.
But if you ever watch Slash play, he does it all with first three fingers.
_ _ _ _ _ _ Now apart from that starting note, [Db] _ these [Eb] notes here _ are the ones that are common to [A] every
bar in this kind of 8 bar riff.
So what we do is the first bar is we start from this
12th fret on the D string here. _ _ _
Then we play that again. _ _ _ _
Then our starting note moves to
14th fret of the D string.
_ _ _ _ Then we play it again. _
_ _ _ [Ab] _ Then we play 12th fret of the [Eb] G string. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Db] _ _ And then we return back to [G] 12th fret [Ab] on the D string.
_ [Eb] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
So if we're going to just look at
the starting notes, it kind of goes 12, then 12, then 14. _ _ _ _
[Db] _ _ _ _ _ Then back to.
_ _ _ [G] _ Okay.
So if I play
those 8 bars nice and slowly what we [Db] have is.
_ _ [Eb] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Dm]
Okay.
So the guitar starts out on its
own and [Dm] after the first 8 bars then the band comes in.
So we play those exact same 8 bars
again.
On the third time through, [Db] once we've gone from 12 [Eb] to our 14 [Db] and then up to our
12 here, instead of returning back to 12, [A] we have a little kind of pedal note idea going
on.
So what happens is we [Eb] kind of play this. _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Gb] _
_ Now what I'm doing [Ab] here is I'm pedaling around
this note here, the [C] 14th fret of the G string.
_ _ [Abm] I start off playing 12 on the high E string.
_ [G] Then 15 on the [Ab] B string to that pedal note [Bb] again.
14th [Eb] fret of the G string.
Then I go back up to 12 on the E string.
_ [G] Then it's 14 on the E string.
_ Then 15.
[Db] _
Then back to 14.
_ _ [B] Then 12. _
Then 15 on the [Db] B string.
_ [G] And I round it all off by [Eb] playing a little
_ _ [C] D triad the way up here at the 14th fret.
So my first finger is playing the 14th fret of the G.
My third finger is playing the [Dbm] 15th fret of the B.
And then my second finger [Eb] is playing the 14th
fret of the high E [Db] string.
_ _ [G] So if I play that little pedal note idea [Eb] just before we go into
the verse it [Ab] goes. _
_ _ [Eb] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Db] _ _ _ _ _ [G]
Okay.
So if I put that all together what I'll do is I'll play 8 bars of
the riff [Eb] and then those 6 bars of the pedal note at the end. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[Db] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _