Guitar Control instructor Darrin Goodman demonstrates how to play the classic tune Hair Of The Dog by Nazareth. This sweet tune has an iconic riff that is a real head turner and you need this in your riff arsenal. Be sure to get the free tabs so you can easily follow along with this killer lesson. Lets check out How To Play Hair Of The Dog By Nazareth.
Introduction
Hey everybody how’s it going? This is Darrin with GuitarControl.com bringing you this video lesson. Today I want to teach you how to play a really cool riff, in my opinion, this is a classic, and it’s Hair Of The Dog from Nazareth. So it’s a really cool iconic riff and it’s just got kind of this blues kind of a thing behind it and that as you learn you can see it’s very similar to like a lot of blues bass lines. So be sure to click on the link in the description for the tabs and let’s get close up and take a look How To Play Hair Of The Dog By Nazareth.
Hair Of The Dog Intro
All right so the first thing you’ve got the first four bars and you just rest and play your cowbell if you got it haha and then it goes into this main riff that’s kind of repeated throughout; it’s in the intro and it’s in the verse. So we start with that we just got our our low E open and then to the third fret and then the fourth fret… then you’re going to take your first finger and just barre it across the second fret of the A and the D string, so that’s the first measure. Now when you play that you don’t want to hear everything ringing over each other… the second fret there on the D string is the last note of the fifth measure, but the first measure that you’re actually playing. So that last note is on the & of four and then it’s tied to a half note on the next measure; so you let that ring out for the & of four plus the first two beats of the next measure. Then keep your finger there on the second fret of the D string and with your pinky you’re going to reach up to the fifth fret of the D string and you’re gonna pick that and you’re gonna put just a very slight bend on it… and then back to that second fret. Now you’re going to take your pinky and you’re going to go to the fifth fret of the A string and then back to the second fret of the B string. So that’s that main riff and it’s just two measures long… that’s the whole intro and you’ve got those first four measures that you just you rest and then you have that riff which is two measures long and you play it twice and then that leads us into the verse.
Verse
So for the verse for Hair Of The Dog By Nazareth it just starts off the same way with that same riff we were doing on the intro and it repeats it a total of four times… So now it does just like a one, four, five progression would. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to play that same riff, but we’re just going to move it up so now instead of being based on the low E, A and D strings, it’s going to be based on the A, D and G strings; so same frets, but now it’s the open A string to the third fret to the fourth fret and then to the second fret of the D string and then the second fret of the G string… And then again just like on the other one now our fourth finger here is going to go up to the fifth fret of the G string, slight bend, back to the second fret of the G string and then to the fifth fret of the D string and back to the second fret of the G string… All right so like I said the main original riff is played a total of four times and then we’re going to go to that. So I’m going to play this like the fourth time on the first one and into that part. So on you’re transcription this is the first four measures of the verse and then going on to the fifth measure, which on your transcription is actually measure 11, but now it’s a little bit different. So now we’ve got… and then we just do an A5… so instead of just hitting the second fret on the G string we’re actually going to get an A5 chord. So what I’m going to do is when I hit the D string here as I roll up I’m just going to hit that A5; so the A string is open and I’m on the second fret of the D string and second fret of the G string… and then there’s a rest on the downbeat of one of the next measure and then on the & of one you hit that A5 again and then you have a rest on the & of two and goes back and this time it’s going to walk down. So instead of going back to the second fret of the G string, we’re actually going to go to the second fret of the E string… so those two measures together and that’s the in the entire verse. So I’ll play the whole verse together, but again I’m not going to do all the repeats on the first part… and then from there that goes into the little interlude section.
So the little interlude section is just like that main riff again… and then that leads us into the chorus.
Chorus
All right so for the chorus for Hair Of The Dog By Nazareth we start off I’ve got an E5 power chord; so I’m here on the seventh fret of the A string with my first finger and then the ninth fret of the D and G strings with my third finger and we play this as a quarter note on the downbeat of one and then we rest on beats two and three. So we’ve got one two three and then on the downbeat of four, which is a quarter note, we’re going to come down here and do G5. So it’s the same shape, but now we’re going to do it down here on the third fret of the low E, A and D strings; so my first finger is on the third fret of the low E string my third finger is on the fifth fret of the A string and my fourth finger is on the fifth fret of the D string and that is on the downbeat of four and we’re going to strum that and then move it up a whole step for the downbeat of one on the next measure and we just move it from being on the third and fifth frets here we just move this shape straight up so we’re on the fifth and seventh frets and that’s the downbeat of one and then we rest for the next three beats… so that’s the first two measures. Then on measure three we come back up to this E5 quarter note again, one and rest on two three and four; so one two three four and then on the fourth measure we rest on the downbeat of one and on the end of one we move this E5 shape down a whole step to D5… and that’s the four measures that make up the first half of the chorus and it’s played twice. Then we just go right back into that main riff again… So those are the main parts; the intro, verse and the chorus and then that just leaves this last part which is the little instrumental part.
Instrumental
Now when they’re doing this they’re like doing it with the talk box and I don’t have one of those so we’ll just be doing it without it. So you’re going to go to the second fret of the D string with your first finger and this first measure is just eighth notes. So the downbeat of one and then the & of one is just the low E open and you’re going to do the same thing for the whole measure; so one and two and three and four and. And then we have this little walking part again. So the first note is here the second fret of the D string and then we go to the fifth fret of the A string with your fourth finger and to the second fret of the A string with your first finger and then we go to the fifth fret of the low E with your fourth finger and to the third fret of the low E string with your second finger and then back to the fifth fret and then the D string open… now that’s all eighth notes except that last open D string at the end of that second measure is a quarter note. So those first two measures and by the way this is also the first two measures and the third and fourth measures are the same and then it’s repeated four times so basically you’re gonna play that riff eight times…
Conclusion
All right so there you have it that’s all the parts to Hair Of The Dog by Nazareth and if you learn these parts and listen to the song it’s easy to identify which ones are which so you can put it all together. Alright so I hope you enjoyed that you got something out of it. If you like the lesson please give me a thumbs up and leave a comment down below if you have any questions about this or other guitar related things I’d like to hear them. If you have not already done so please hit that subscribe button and click that notification bell so that way you don’t miss out any of the content that we upload throughout the week. Well that is all I have for you today. Thanks for watching How To Play Hair Of The Dog By Nazareth and have a great day.
