Sweet Child O’ Mine: Why Every Guitarist Should Learn It
Even beginners can play this one...
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Sweet Child O' Mine: Why Every Guitarist Should Learn It · Source: ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy Stock Foto
Sweet Child O’ Mine could be the ultimate guitarist’s song because every section teaches something to all playing abilities. Prove me wrong.
Guitar Lessons From Sweet Child O’Mine:
What Does Sweet Child O’ Mine Have to Offer?
- Sweet Child O’ Mine offers instantly accessible playing for beginners, whilst also pushing advanced players.
- Learn your open chords in addition to brushing up on soloing skills, rhythm and pocket.
- Guitarists can take a lot of value from Sweet Child O’ Mine by studying each section. Whether that’s converting open chords to power chords or grasping the bends in the solo.
Chord Foundations
As a guitar tutor, Sweet Child O’ Mine is rich in sweet lessons for all. Let’s say you’re a total beginner, and you’ve never even picked up the guitar before. All you want to do is play like your favourite artists and records.
Therefore, why not learn one of the most reciognisable rock songs ever released? With approximately 8.5 million records sold worldwide, chances are, most players have heard of it.
It’s vital for beginners to learn their open chord shapes, and Sweet Child O’ Mine is a perfect opportunity to do this. The track features D, C and G major throughout the verses. Encouraging repetition with chord changes.
Strumming Patterns
What happens when you’ve got the chords down? Why not bring them to life! Strumming patterns transform exercises into music.
Instead of strumming each chord with eight down strokes, which becomes very tedious, you could try playing a down down up, up down, pattern for each bar. This is similar to the rhythm that is played on the bass guitar, helping players to lock into the feel of the track.
Power Chords
At the end of the day, this track is a rock song. Open chords are great, but they don’t sound too rocky. This is where we can add in power chords to your playing.
What is a power chord on guitar? These are two-note chords that only feature the root and the 5th of a chord. Unlike a traditional chord that uses the root, 3rd and 5th. As a result, it provides a harsher vibe appropriate for rock, punk, and metal tracks.
To convert a D chord to a power chord in Sweet Child O’ Mine, you could play the 5th fret of the A string with your index finger, whilst playing the 7th fret of the D string with your 3rd finger.
Riffs
Let’s say you’ve been playing a while. Maybe it’s time to tackle that iconic opening riff. To do this, you need a good understanding of TAB. There are plenty of TABs online for this riff, but there’s one here if you need it:
Whilst being both legendary and a little annoying, the Sweet Child O’ Mine riff is great to learn. It encourages alternate picking, in addition to using multiple fingers for one riff. It’s also very humbling when it comes to your tone. Too much gain can make this sound very messy, whereas not enough gain makes it too clean.
You don’t get a lot of air time with the first riff; however, there are two mini solos that follow each chorus. These encourage string bending and are a great little taster for lead guitar work.
Solos
Riffs eventually transition into solos. As aforementioned, there are small solos that some players would consider instrumental links. These are located after each chorus.
They’re great to learn because you can easily hum or sing these solos without being able to play them. This makes them memorable and easier to learn.
We’ve talked a lot about beginner players, but there’s also plenty on offer for advanced players. The final solo isn’t impossible, but it’s enough to make any player concentrate. There are fast phrases with almost sweep-picking-like levels of speed. Unlike the link solos, there are lots of notes to remember, so this will encourage and help with stamina and dexterity.
Theory
When I teach this song to students or bands, I don’t do it for the sake of it. It’s important to know what you’re playing as well as just playing it. Aside from the chord, riff, and solo work of the song, it’s a nice opportunity to squeeze in a bit of theory.
Eb Tuning
Landing on their debut 1987 album, Appetite For Destruction, like many other tracks, Sweet Child O’ Mine is in the Eb guitar tuning. For guitarists, this means that we have two options when playing and learning:
- Downtune your guitar to Eb
- Search for a backing track in E standard tuning and/ or 440hz.
For beginners, it’s really important to know and understand the difference in key. It can help to avoid mistakes whilst playing to the track. Furthermore, it’s good to know how to downtune your guitar.
Key Change
I like to split this song into two halves. You get the first half that’s very sedate and easy to listen to. Almost acoustic in nature. Then, you have the second half that’s a proper rock song.
What helps this second section to sound more aggressive is the modulation from D to E minor. What is modulation in music? This is a fancy way of saying that the song changes key. The end solos and outro of the track are in E minor, which is a tone higher than the rest of the song.
Furthermore, the shift from a major key to a minor key also gives the track an injection of rock.
Accessible Gear
We’ve seen that Sweet Child O’Mine offers so much for all levels of players. The gear used also reflects this. Slash is best known for wielding a Gibson Les Paul. What if you’re a beginner? Gibson guitars can be expensive! This is where Epiphone and other brands come in.
What I love about the Les Paul is that you can get hold of one relatively cheaply, and still look and sound more or less like Slash.
Moreover, Slash uses a Wah pedal in the closing solo of the song. Therefore, this is a perfect time to experiment with using this type of pedal. Thankfully, there are plenty to choose from over at *Thomann and indeed *Sweetwater.
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Further Information
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