This famous song needs little introduction. However, it does need some re-tuning. Tune your guitar to DADGAD (Jimmy Page's favourite alternate tuning). Don't forget you can use the ActionTab Tuner DADGAD preset for that!
This isn't a tough song to learn. The rhythm is consistent and the riffs aren't hard once you get used to them. The entire song is ActionTabbed for you, and the backing music included to help.
The song kicks off with that unmistakable rhythm. A brisk down/up/down strum, with a pause to belt out the Low D string (every second time). Always mute the strings after the chord stabs to get that punchy rhythmic effect.
Be careful to keep your fingers from muting the middle D string as you strum through that main riff. Your fingers need to change positions quite quickly, and if you are thumb-muting you may find that quite tricky...
Although we show the thumb-muting in this ActionTab, you don't have to thumb-mute the Low D string if it's causing you problems. You can palm mute the strings with your strumming hand instead to stop the strings sounding. Doing that will also enable you to use your thumb in the centre of the back of the fretboard, rather than over the top edge. This means your fingers can approach the frets from a more acute angle, which means you are less likely to accidentally mute the middle D string during those down/up/down strums. That said, the advantage to the thumb-muting is that you can be a little freer with your strumming hand, because you are able to tightly control the strings more with your fretboard hand.
Use the 'gaps' in the rhythm to quickly mute the strings and change finger positions. This can be a little weird at first because you need to do this while letting the Low D string sound out (every second 'gap'). Just keep at it and you'll get it :)
That riff repeats throughout much of the song, so once you can do it (get it right slowly, then build speed), start working on the next guitar part...the descending chords from the 12th fret. This part is probably the hardest of the riffs - and it's not too bad. Again, with some practice and patience you should be able to get it down quite quickly. If you struggle with the thumb-muting here, then don't worry - use your thumb in the centre of the back of the fretboard - for the same reasons outlined earlier. You will just need to be a little more careful with your strumming - and even then, hitting the low D and A strings won't matter too much because they will still work with the rest of the music. In fact, if you are playing on acoustic guitar, it works better to strum out all the strings like that as you descend through all the chords - try it out and see for yourself!
Once you can do these 2 main riff sections, the rest of the song will be a breeze! Sounds great on acoustic or electric guitar so choose your axe and prepare to learn a Rock Monolith!
