There
are a few songs that all guitarists want to play,
and this is one of them. Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd
Skynyrd has to be one of the catchiest guitar intros
ever and we’ve tabbed it out for you in this
free guitar lesson!
Take
a look at the video and then click on the link
below to open the tab in a new window:
Get
The Tab!
(Click on link to open tab in new
window)
This
riff is based around the open D chord and incorporates
the other two chords, G and E into it. Because
of this the main fingering is fairly straight
forward and just requires some accurate picking.
The best approach is a mixture of down and up
strokes.
Play
the first one and a half bars through several
times until you are confident with that section,
then move on to the tricky fill in bar two. This
part is shown close up in the video. It uses a
series of hammer-ons and pull-offs, which are
not actually that difficult, bar the last pull-off.
The last one is difficult because it breaks the
flow of hammer-ons and pull-offs and forces you
to pick twice in the same time that you would
have done one pick. Study this part in detail
and play it really slowly. Don’t speed it
up until you can play it perfectly.
The
main part of the riff then repeats before another
tricky fill comes in. This time it requires accurate
picking with a bend at the end. You need to move
quickly from the bend to get back to the lower
position for the start of the next section.
The
whole thing is then repeated, except the last
fill changes to a simple slide and two picked
open notes.
This
riff sounds great when sped up, but remember –
too much speed to soon will make you playing sound
sloppy.
