Guitar Control presents instructor Darrin Goodman with a lesson on how to play the Ramones classic Blitzkrieg Bop on guitar. Be sure to click the link for the free tabs that go with this How To Play Blitzkrieg Bop By The Ramones lesson.
Introduction
Hey everybody how’s it going? This is Darrin with GuitarControl.com bringing you this video lesson. Today I want to show you how to play a really easy song by the Ramones called Blitzkrieg Bop. It’s really simple, just a bunch of power chords and this is kind of the epitome of the old stereotype “they only know three chords”. It’s just a three chord song, well that’s not true there’s actually a fourth chord in it at one point in time, but for the most part it’s just really simple power chords, but it was a really popular song. Ramones have a big cult following so I thought this would be a good one to do. So be sure to click on the link in the description for the tabs and let’s get close up and take a look at How To Play Blitzkrieg Bop By The Ramones.
Intro & Verse
All right so there’s basically three parts to Blitzkrieg Bop by The Ramones; we have the intro, which is also the same as the verse and we have a breakdown section and then we have a chorus. So for that intro/verse part we’re going to start off just with an A5 power chord here on the fifth fret of the low E string with my first finger and then you can and then the seventh fret of the A string with your third finger and you can also add in the seventh fret of the D string with your fourth finger because that’s also an A; so either way you know, if it’s more comfortable. Some people with smaller hands they have a hard time doing this and for you know so just whichever way you want to do it is fine. So this is 16th notes and that’s half of the measure and then we’re going to go to a D5. So we’re just going to take that shape and we’re just going to move it straight up so now our first finger is on the fifth fret of the A string, third finger is on the seventh fret of the D string and your fourth finger on the seventh fret of the G string and this is on the downbeat of three and it’s a dotted eighth note so it’s kind of weird to count this and then we just move up a whole step for E5; so now your first finger is on the seventh fret of the A string and your third and fourth fingers are on the ninth fret, still on the D and G strings and this is a dotted eighth note and then this is an eighth note and then you follow that with three sixteenth notes… So that’s the first measure and that’s repeated three times. Now lets look at the strumming for Blitzkrieg Bop By The Ramones.
Blitzkrieg Bop Strumming
All right so to kind of get that that kind of raw sound of Blitzkrieg Bop By The Ramones you don’t really want it to be like… you want a kind of bigger strum. Now the problem with this is these other strings are open so you don’t want to hear those obviously. So what I’m doing is that my first finger as it’s getting the fifth fret here on that low E string and I’ve kind of got it arced over so it’s muting these other strings which allows me to have this bigger pick stroke and I’m not really even hitting these, I’m just kind of hitting just the bottom three strings, same idea when I moved to these other chords. So that’s the first measure and like I said it’s repeated three times and then we come back to that A5 and we do one and up to the D5; so one and two and three… so that’s the second measure. So those two measures together and you repeat that; I just actually put a note on that staff to play that staff twice… Now lets look at the Breakdown for Blitzkrieg Bop By The Ramones.
Breakdown
All right and then that leads us into this breakdown section of Blitzkrieg Bop By The Ramones. So the first part of that the guitar doesn’t do anything you just rest for the first three measures. So that’s the part they’re like “hey oh, let’s go” and then it just drops back into that A5, all 16th notes, for a whole measure, so you’re like resting one, two, three, four, two, two, three, four, three, two, three, four, and then it just goes right back into that first part we did because that’s where the verse is. So what we did before this that was basically playing the intro, but it’s the same thing and then the three bar rest and that leads us into the chorus for Blitzkrieg Bop By The Ramones.
Chorus
So for the chorus of Blitzkrieg Bop By The Ramones we’re going to start off with that D5 and we have a whole measure of that as 16th notes and then back to the A5 for the first two beats of 16th notes and then up to the D5 and back to the A5… so the first two measures of the chorus… So then we go on to the third measure and it’s the same as the first measure of the chorus so we go back to that D5 for a whole measure of 16th notes. Now here’s that fourth chord that we were talking about, it’s B5, so you can just take that A5 shape we were doing and move it up a whole step; so now your first finger is on the seventh fret of the low E string, your third finger is on the ninth fret of the A string and your fourth finger is on the ninth fret of the D string. So it’s like an eighth note, two sixteenth notes and then two eighth notes and then we go back to the D5 and we strum that once and then we come up to the E5 and slide out of it. So that last part starting on the B5 and then it goes into another chorus again. So starting from the intro… one, two, three, four, two, two, three, four, three, two, three, four and then just goes right back into another verse again. So those are basically all the parts and it’s pretty simple tell which one is which. So like I said it’s a really simple song with real simple power chords. It’s a great song for a beginner or you just want to learn a really easy fun song that everybody knows then Blitzkrieg Bop By The Ramones is a great one.
Conclusion
Alright so I hope you enjoyed How To Play Blitzkrieg Bop By The Ramones and you got something out of it. If you like this lesson be sure to give me a thumbs up and leave me a comment down below if you have any questions or if you have any comments about this or any suggestions or ideas for future lessons from either myself or one of the other instructors at GuitarControl.com. If you have not already done so please hit that subscribe button and click the notification bell so that you don’t miss out any of the content that we upload throughout the week. Alright so that is all I have for you today. Thanks for watching How To Play Blitzkrieg Bop By The Ramones and have a great day.
