Chords for The 6 LEVELS of Iron Man (Main Riff)

What's up everyone Mike here from the art of guitar today
I want to talk about the six levels of the Iron Man riff once again
It seems like a simple riff a lot of people sort of say whatever.
It's Iron Man.
Just like it's smoke on the water
It smells like teen spirit
But to me it's interesting man, but to [A#] me
It's so important to honor these riffs because they were such a big part of my life
They are such a big part of my life, and I've played them wrong a lot in my life
And I really want to rectify that situation by being able to teach the different levels of it
So wherever you guys want to play it you have the choice
And you won't go playing it the wrong way for half [E] your life like I did okay
So the first way I want to do it is the way I first played it when I first started guitar
And that's starting on the open E string now.
It's gonna sound pretty cool because it's a low E.
It's
_ Some depth to it.
We're gonna try it with one string, and we're gonna use multiple fingers, so here's what we're gonna have _ _ _
[G] _ _ [A] _ _ _ [C] Move up and we do this _ _ _ [G] _ _ [A] _ _
_ _ now when you start guitar
This could be fun at first and then you get to the higher part and this little
Exchange could be a little difficult a lot of people do this.
I'll just give you a quick [C] lesson tip here
_ _ [B]
It's a [E] waste of movement.
You [Gm] could leave your index finger down [C] and just go _
_ [B] _ So I teach a lot of my beginning students this riff [G] because it helps them with that concept
So _ [A] _ _ _ _
that's level one
Level two is where you take that idea of the one string and we move it over to the fifth string second fret because that's actually the real
Note that it starts on B.
So we're gonna [B] do the same thing
_ _ _ [D] _ _
[E] _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ [D] _ _
[E] _ _ _ And that's great because you're at least in the key of the song so when you're playing along to it
It sounds decent
The only problem is that sounds a little bit weak because it is a single string
Even though they do that in the verse you want the main riff to sound more [B] powerful
_ [D] _ _
_ [E] _ _ _ [G] _ _ [D] _ _
_ [E] _ _ _ _ _ And that sounds pretty good that can get you by for a long time
_ Then eventually like what I realize is that Tony Iommi moves a lot of this stuff to the sixth string in the fifth string
And he plays instead of a B here
He'll play it here
And it actually does give it more depth a lot of people leave comments saying it's the same note
Who cares how you play it?
But if you listen to the difference in sound, this is the B on the fifth [B] string
_ And now a B power chord starting on the sixth string.
You got a darker sound to it, doesn't it?
So when you play the riff here versus here, it's definitely a difference.
So quit saying it doesn't matter.
Okay, so down here again
_ [D] _ _
_ [E] _ _ [B] Now here _ [D] _
_ [E] _ _ _ _ _ these little frets are nice up here [G] because we're gonna be going
_ _ [D] _
_ [E] _ _ So to me that sounds a lot fatter a lot more true and I like the sound of it
So that's going to be level four when you get to level five you do the same thing
We just did except now we're gonna add the slides finally
So what I like to say when I'm teaching this is pick pick pick slide pick pick slide pick slide
You know, I just have [A#] a way of saying it so it follows the [B] rhythm
_ _ [D] _ _
_ [E] _ _ _ So that was pick pick pick slide pick
_ [G] _ _ _ _ [F#] By [G] the way, that's really hard for a lot of beginners to do
_ _ [F#] _
Because every time they slide down they don't time it right when they come back and they don't make contact right when their fingers hit
The 15th fret so work on that slow and [G] really lock that in
_ _ _ _ [F#] _ _
Important pick slide pick slide pick slide and then we drop down to the 10th fret.
We do two picks slide and [D] pick
_ _ [E] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ Put it [B] together pick some slides and you get this
_ _ [D] _ _
_ [E] _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ [B] _ _ _
_ _ Now if you really don't care about the the real fine details then just play it the way you I just played it level five
Is totally fine
It'll get you through a lot of situations
But if you want to add the last couple of details that bump this up to level six
Which I find to be fun when you add those little things
You end up with these little tiny changes
For example, when you first play the first couple notes, there's a little quick rest in there _ [D] _ _ [A] right there
[B] _ _
_ [D] _ _ [C] Yeah, it's not that long but it's gonna be shorter [D] and then you finish up the next part
[E] _ _ Put it [B] together you get this
_ [D] _ _ _ _ [E] _
That rest can be accomplished just by lifting off the pressure of that note.
Okay, so it's a good way of deadening the strings
[G] Just like that
[D] _ _ [E] _ _ _ Now here's probably the biggest difference between level five and level six when you do this next part
The third one's gonna be different than the first two [G] _ _ _ _
_ [D] _ see the difference.
So [G] instead of going
_ _ _ [F#] What [G] kind of an audio illusion your ear wants to hear it that way for some reason?
And so you got to go against that instinct and on the third one slow it all the way down to the 10th fret instead
_ _ _ _ [D] Oh _
[E] Now I say slide because you do make a slide sound but you pick it once you get there.
So it's a slide to [G] a pick _ _ _
_ [D] _ _ _ Okay, then there's another quick [G#] little lift off.
So there's a tiny bit of a rest there and then [D] finish it off
_ [E] _ _ _ _ _ _
There's one [B] more detail, but we're gonna wait for that for one second.
Okay, so let's play the whole thing again
_ _ [D] _ _ _ _
_ [E] _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
[D] _ _ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _
[B] _ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ [E] _
_ _ _ [G] _ _ _ [D] _ _
_ [E] _ _ _ _ _ We're getting really close.
Now.
There's one last thing.
Let's see if anyone knows what it is _
_ _ It seems insignificant just like a lot of these details might but it's not
There's a big slide at the very end.
So be honest and let me know if you actually got that, right?
Okay, so at the very end [D] you're gonna go
_ _ [E] _ _ _ _
[B] _ _ I've seen him do that where he just kind of [C] goes up and comes down.
I've seen him [D] go
_ [E] _ _ _ [B] _
And just [E] slide from where he's at, which is the eat the 12th fret and that sounds fine, too
I kind of like the one string I hear that more in the recording
_ [B] _ _ _ If you ever play war pigs, you'll know that those slides are very important
So let's go ahead and play the whole thing more at full speed with all the with all the details _
_ [D] _ _ _ [E] _ _ [G] _ _
_ [D] _ _ [E] _ _ [B] _ _ _
[D] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _
[D] _ _ [E] _ _ _ [B] _ _
So anyways, let's try to honor the the metal gods if you will and try to play the riffs as close as possible
And just see what it's actually like and then like I said before take it anywhere you want make it yours
Add some of your own original ideas if you want to.
Alright guys, that was a lot of fun
I got to see Black Sabbath live one time in my life and I'll never forget how powerful
Their riffs were and how powerful just their whole performance was
It was great to see it and I really wanted to honor the riffs of Tony Iommi because his music is such a big part
of my guitar playing _
Huge influence on me.
So check out the Tony Iommi artist series to get some more details on other songs
But as for now good luck with Iron Man and have