Learn the Main Riff of Nirvana's "Come As You Are"

Series Summary

The guitar has been around for nearly 5,000 years, developed from even more ancient instruments akin to the sitar, it has been inspiring audiences since its first chord was strummed. It is the primary instrument involved with many genres of music including country, blues, flamenco, rock, and pop, and has been celebrated as one of the most expressive instruments in the world. Whether blending acoustic harmonies on a classical guitar or shredding solos on an electric guitar, the importance of the guitar to 20th century music cannot be ignored.

In this free video series, our expert Joe Wiles will teach you how to play "Come As You Are" by Nirvana on the guitar. He'll teach you how to play the main riff, the pre-chorus, the chorus, and the solo of this iconic song.

Video Transcript

"In this video series, we're going to take a look at Nirvana's "Nevermind". We're going to take an exhaustive look at all the guitar parts, explore them and then we'll learn them. It starts on the low E string. You hit it twice, put your index finger on the first fret, and then the second fret with your middle finger. Nothing to it. Now we hit the open A string and go back to the E string with the fretted finger still in place. Open A string okay? That's twice in a row. Then we're going to go back down the low E string; 2,1,0. So far, this is where we?re. At this point we take our middle finger and put in on the second fret of the A string. We'll hit that and hit the open E string twice. Hit them each one more time, and then we start it over. In entirety, the main riff sounds like this. We'll work through that a few times. It's an easy riff and well worth learning. In the next segment, we're going to talk about the pre chorus riff. I'll see you there."