How to Play "Hysteria" on the Guitar

Video Transcript

"JOE WILES: Hello, this is Joe Wiles with the Rock and Roll Conservatory on behalf of Expert Village. We're counting down the top 80 most downloaded guitar tabs on the Internet. Coming in at number 61 and finishing off our video from 80 to 61 is "Hysteria" by Muse. Now, the whole introduction to this song starts with bass. That's the key signature or that's the signature riff for the song that everybody recognize, but it's for the bass guitar. When the actual guitar kicks in, we use an octave technique in which we use our index finger on the 12th fret, skipping this one or muting it out with our index finger so it sounds like this. So it's muted out. Pinkie on the 14th fret of the G string. Whenever I'm doing an octaving technique or anything similar, I'll always jam my pinkie into the strings. I don't want to ring out. I use my thumb to meet the lower strings so I could just go wild on the strings. That way, these two strings are the only ones that are ringing out and it gives a lot of beef to the sound that you're producing. Okay? Now, I'm going to show you all the octave parts and then I'm going to show you the bend between them, okay? The octave parts go--with the bend, which I'll show you later, down here. That's just moving your octave part down a half step, down one fret. Now, we move this same octave part down to the 8th and 10th fret and then down to the 7th and 9th fret. Together, without the bend between them, it sounds like this. All right? In the next segment, I'm going to show you the bend and how to work it all together within the riff to make it complete, okay? I'll see you there."