Smoke On The Water guitar tab video

About this riff

The core is a four-note blues-scale figure in G minor, and the trick most beginners miss is that Blackmore plays it in harmonized parallel fourths plucked with the fingers, not as barre chords hammered with a pick. Learning it the 'correct' way in third position teaches you clean two-note voicings and a controlled fingerstyle attack rather than the usual power-chord shortcut. It's an ideal first riff: instantly recognizable, low on the neck, and forgiving on tempo at around 112 BPM.

Did you know?

The song documents a real disaster the band witnessed: on 4 December 1971, during Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention's set at the Montreux Casino, an audience member fired a flare gun into the venue's wooden ceiling and burned the whole complex down, destroying Zappa's gear. Deep Purple had come to Montreux to record with the Rolling Stones' Mobile Studio, and after being displaced they cut the track in an empty theatre; while tracking, local police banged on the doors to stop the noise, and the roadies held the doors shut until the take was finished.

Sources: [1] [2]

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