How to Play "Immigrant Song" on the Guitar

Video Transcript

"JOE WILES: Let's take a look at number 60, which is "Immigrant Song," by Led Zeppelin. This song starts out all on just two notes, really easy. Your index finger is going to be on the 2nd fret of the low E string and your pinky is going to be on the 4th fret of the D string. We're going to alternate back and forth between these notes, okay? It's going to take some alternate picking, some back and forth picking down here in order to get it right, but this is how it sounds slowly. To speed, that riff sounds like this. The hard part about this song is that you're skipping the A string when you're going back and forth between the E and the D string. It's a really tricky riff to do if you're not used to alternate picking. You have to make sure you miss that A string entirely. What I do is I lay my index finger across the A string just a little bit as I'm fretting the 2nd fret of the low E string. What this does is mutes out the A string. So if I accidentally hit it, it's not going to ring out very much. It's not going to ring out, okay? Practice that a bit, and in the next segment, we're going to talk about "Through the Fire and Flames" by DragonForce. I'll see you there."