I have been playing guitar with a new set of plastic & metal fingerpicks for the past month or so. The metal ones in particular have really accelerated my finger-picking learning curve since before I got them I was using the tips of my fingers, which had a tendency to get much too tender too fast for me to make the progress I wanted to make in each practice session. The volume and response I get out of these relative to my old method just blows away the results I was getting before. I have been playing roughly 4 hour sessions 4-5 times a week for the last month and a half and IT JUST CLICKED after 6 months of working trying to get my fingers to do what my brain already knows how to do with a pic in standard tuning on steel-string guitar.

Without further ado, here is my first featured lesson with video, Radiohead’s “Airbag” distilled down to one acoustic guitar.

Download my interpretation of the song as a PDF and follow along.

Explanation

Riff 1

This clever snippet shifts between:

1) A (A-C#-E) with a suspended 2nd (B) to a

2) Dm (D-F-A) with a suspended 2nd (E) added 6th (B).

The high fret 10 and fret 12 on the B-string complicate the chord voicings and add a lil flavor in my mind. The tension here is between the shifting dissonance in the melody from F (Dm) to E (A major). The omnipresent high drone E note (on the open high E string) hammers this dissonance home, while the B (sus2 in the A/6th in the D) over both chords reacts harshly but beautifully to the F. These two notes are tritones, a intervallic relationship that is considered to the most dissonant in music theory.

Dm6         Dm6(2)     Asus2      Asus2(2)

—0——-0——-0———-0——–

—0——12——-0———10——–

–10——10——-9———-9——–

–12——12——11———11——–

—0——-0——-0———-0——–

—————————————-

Riff 2

Keep the 4 highest strings ringing via fingerpicking while moving the bass notes above it by fretting with your ring finger and picking with your thumb. This takes some time but is so rewarding; one of my favorite riffs ever.

Asus2

—0———————————————

—0———————————————

—6———————————————

—7———————————————

—0-7-8———0–7-8——–0—————-

———–8-7-9———-8-7——–9———-

Riff 3

This nice descending figure goes chromatically (notes that are adjacent to each other, one half step apart) from E-Eb-D-C#. The Asus2 has the E, the A (flatted fifth) has the Eb which is technically not found in the A major scale and is derived from flatting the 5th scale degree, E. The D obviously has the D in the root and takes a dissonant turn into Dm which is irregular in the key of A major as well. The closest “legal” note in traditional A major is the 6th, F#. By flatting the 6th scale tone (also known as sharping the 5th) the high drone E clashes with the sharped fifth (F) creating a very interesting Dm. The B (D’s 6th) makes it an unusual Dm6(2).

Asus2   A(b5) D6 Dm6 Dm6(2)

–0——–0—–0—-0——-7————————-

–0——–0—–0—-6——-6————————-

–6——–8—–7—-7——-7————————-

–7——–7—–7—-7——-7————————-

–0——–X—–0—-0——-0————————-

———–7——————————————–

Chorus

This clever change may have been inspired or is at least reminiscent of The Beatles’ “You Won’t See Me” in it’s slow meandering largely chromatic march down from E-Eb-D-C#-B-A. Once again, Eb is a flatted 5th in the key of A and it is the major 3rd of B7, which is made up of B-Eb-A-F#. In this voicing, the F# is absent but it can be added to taste by fretting the 2nd fret of the highest string, replacing the open E note below. Note that it is optional as the E and Eb together in one chord together create desired dissonance and the first two steps of the chromatic (read: adjacent notes with no respect to scale) progression. Landing on the Dominant 5th (the E following Esus4) with it’s Major 3rd (a G#) at the end of the chorus launches the song with great momentum back into the tonic (read “home”) note of the song, A. Anytime you play the note immediately adjacent and below the tonic note of a song you are creating a great urge to resolve to the key you are in, in this case A major.

B7     D   Dmaj7 D   Dmaj7 Esus4    E

–0—0—0—0—0—–0—-0————————————-

–0—3—2—3—2—–0—-0————————————-

–2—2—2—2—2—–2—-1————————————-

–1—0—0—0—0—–2—-2————————————-

–2—0—4—0—4—–2—-2————————————

–x—x—x—x—x——0—-0————————————

Solo

Keep the highest three strings ringing with your index middle and ring fingers on the picking hand, while the moveable octave shape slides from note to note. The open high B and E strings provide needed dissonance and duplicate fretted consonance, and make it seem like much more is going on than you are actually playing. See if you can hear the implied A major and Dm6 chords below the wave of notes as the A major scale (A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G#-A) gives way to the A minor scale over Dm6 (A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A) and then washed back over when it descends from E to D (present in both scales) to C# (present only in major scale).

A   G# F#  G#   F      A      B     C

—0—-0—0—-0—-0—–0—–0—-0———

—0—-0—0—-0—-0—–0—–0—-0———

–14–13–11–13—10—14—16—17————-

—x—-x—x—-x—–x—–x—–x—-x———

–12–11—9—11—-8—12—-14–15————

————————————————–

B    A    E  D C# E  D  C#

–0—-0—0–0–0–0–0—0———————

–0—-0—0–0–0–0–0—0———————

-16–14—9–7–6–9–7—6———————-

–x—-x—-x–x–x–x–x—x———————

-14–12—7–5–4–7–5—4———————-

————————————————–