hatrickpatrick
The Fly
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2006
- Messages
- 180
I know Edge doesn't play it this way and every tab for the song follows the way he plays it in live performance, but when I used to play everything by ear before I discovered tabs, I basically tabbed it as open chords with a little bit of finger work to make the little melodies.
Following the chord shapes A minor, D sus 2, F major 7, and G (until you get to the third verse when both the D and F chords become straight major chords), you basically play the deeper strings and use the E and B strings to play the little melodies:
Alternatively you can play the very last little riff an octave higher, since G major is an almost completely open chord, by sliding up to 7 in the 7 string, and playing 7--7h8-7h8--7.
When you get into the later verses where there's an F# hammering down to E repeatedly, you just forgo the melodies, start strumming the chords normally, and use your pinky to play that little riff on the high E string.
Obviously this is a pretty lazy way of playing the song but it's great for acoustic performances, especially on guitars with high action that makes sliding around a bit of a pain.
Just wondering am I alone in playing it this way, or has anyone else tried it?
I'm sure I'll get murdered around here for tabbing it so lazily but bear in mind this was in the days before YouTube when one couldn't simply watch a bunch of recorded performances to tab it, and as I say I wasn't reading tabs at all back then, just listening and figuring out the notes by trial and error. But I still play it like this simply because it works - so just wondered if anyone else had stumbled across this method themselves.
Following the chord shapes A minor, D sus 2, F major 7, and G (until you get to the third verse when both the D and F chords become straight major chords), you basically play the deeper strings and use the E and B strings to play the little melodies:
Code:
-------0-------0--------------------------0--------0----------------------
---------3-1h3------------3-1h3-1h3---------3-1h3----3-1-0--0--0h1--0h1--0
----0h2--------------0h2--------------0h2----------------0-----0----0----0
----0h2--------------0-0--------------0h3---------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alternatively you can play the very last little riff an octave higher, since G major is an almost completely open chord, by sliding up to 7 in the 7 string, and playing 7--7h8-7h8--7.
When you get into the later verses where there's an F# hammering down to E repeatedly, you just forgo the melodies, start strumming the chords normally, and use your pinky to play that little riff on the high E string.
Obviously this is a pretty lazy way of playing the song but it's great for acoustic performances, especially on guitars with high action that makes sliding around a bit of a pain.
Just wondering am I alone in playing it this way, or has anyone else tried it?
I'm sure I'll get murdered around here for tabbing it so lazily but bear in mind this was in the days before YouTube when one couldn't simply watch a bunch of recorded performances to tab it, and as I say I wasn't reading tabs at all back then, just listening and figuring out the notes by trial and error. But I still play it like this simply because it works - so just wondered if anyone else had stumbled across this method themselves.