How to Play "Roulette" on the Guitar

Video Transcript

"JOE WILES: Hi. This is Joe Wiles with the Rock and Roll Conservatory on behalf of Expert Village. In this segment, we're looking at number 78. It is "Roulette" by System of a Down. Our first step is that we've gotta take our guitar from standard tuning, your standard E, A, D, G, B and E. We've gotta drop it down a whole step to D, G, C, F, A, D. I'm going to play the pitches and you match your guitar to these, okay? That's a D note. This is your G note. This is your C note. This is your F note. This is your A note. And lastly, this is your high D note. It's just like standard tuning except it's a whole step down as if you had two frets lower down here, okay? Now, to tackle "Roulette," we're going to start with the open C string. This is now the C string, 1st fret of the high D string. Those are the two we're going to tackle first. Next one, 3rd fret of your C string, 5th fret on your high D string. Okay? Then 3rd fret of your, now, it's a G string, and the 5th fret of your A string now. That's the 3rd chord. Slide this up three, 1, 2, 3. So now on the 6th and 8th fret of the same strings, we're going to go slide this all the way down, same form, but we're on the 1st fret and the 3rd fret of the same strings, and you'll slide it up two. Okay? Put together, that sounds like this. That's a cooler riff. But the drop D tuning could be a little tricky at first or the drop D standard tuning could be a little tricky at first so practice that a bit. Use my guitar tuning as a reference if you need it, if you don't have a tuner. And I'll see you on the next one. We're going to look at number 77."