This song is quite easy to play, however is in Drop C tuning. Use the ActionTab Tuner to help retune your strings to Low C G C F A D. Using this tuning means that you can get lower sounding chords, but be careful with your guitar...adjusting the tuning this much affects the guitar neck tension. As a general rule, you should only dabble with Tunings lower than D if you are confident your guitar can handle it (most modern guitars can). Your guitar neck may take time to adjust and settle to the different string tension. So expect to fine tune the strings for a while.
Some bands set their guitars up to solely work in these low tunings, which involves adjusting:
- The springs in the back of the guitar
- The truss rod in the neck
- The action (the height of strings off the fretboard)
- Using thicker gauge strings (such as 0.56 - 0.11)
The strings become a lot slacker when tuning very low. It gives a deeper sound - so such tunings are becoming increasingly common in rock and metal music. They can be fun indeed. Most modern guitars can handle these lower tunings comfortably for a while without having to re-engineer everything. So don't be too afraid to experiment and try out this song.
However, if in doubt, or things go weird...return to standard tuning!
If you plan to leave your guitar in low tuning then you should adjust the things in the above list (and definitely use thicker strings). To prevent lots of messing about with truss rods etc, many guitarists will have one guitar set up in Standard tuning, and another guitar set up for lower tuning. This obviously saves on constant re-adjustment and waiting for the tensions to settle. But costs another guitar!
The chord changes and strumming in this song are straightforward stuff. For the most part, the strumming is regular down / upstrums. The chords start out with a C minor (no 5th note). Notice that the 1st finger is used to omit unwanted notes. Playing this way means you can strum more freely and even strike muted strings, which will be effectively drowned out.
The next little sequence is basically an F minor chord. At the start of the song the bass note F isn't included after 3 strums (whilst those alternating notes are being played with the 3rd / 4th fingers). Don't worry too much about avoiding that low F note. That does take some precise strumming. You can keep the F note fretted and strum all 3 lower strings if you wish and it'll sound good. In fact, later in the song when this intro is repeated, that is how they play this part anyway.
The intro repeats between the C and F chords for quite a while (useful for practicing along with). Then shifts to a C5 (powerchord), Ab5 (powerchord) and alternates again.
Once you can switch between these 4 chords, you'll find everything else in the song is easy enough because these are the main chord sequences, and even the other chords that appear use these shapes. The only exception is at the end of the song where the little finger is added to an F5 powerchord. Thus changing the F5 powerchord (played F C F C at fret 5) to F minor (F C Ab C).
