Check out this Easy Guitar Lesson on How to Play “Don’t Fear the Reaper” by Blue Öyster Cult. This step by step video, taught by Guitar Control instructor Jon MacLennan, along with the free tabs will have you rockin’ this guitar classic in record time.
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Introduction
Hey how is it going? I hope you’re doing fantastic. My name is Jon MacLennan and I want to give you a guitar lesson today in the style of Blue Oyster Cult, Don’t Fear The Reaper, this is a really cool arpeggiated riff. So let’s zoom in and break it down.
Don’t Fear The Reaper
So the main riff for Don’t Fear The Reaper is based off of just three chords; an A5, a G and F6/9 and a G again. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to start on that A5 where I play that with just two fingers. I put my second finger on the fourth string second fret and then put my third finger right underneath it on the third string second fret and then I arpeggiate each note like this… and then I played the third string open. Then I move to a G chord which I play with just two fingers, my third finger and my second finger on the third fret and the second fret here. And you can see I’m on the sixth string and then the 5th string, they’re just kind of diagonal, and then I just go down four strings like this starting at the sixth string and go. So if I put those two together it sounds like this…
Then I move to basically an F6/9 which all you gotta fret is one and three here. So I’m on the sixth string 1st fret, 5th string 3rd fret and then I keep those fingers kind of up on the tips because I’m going to let the two strings below ring open. You really want to try it on the tips to get this sound, they’re bringing out and then back up to that G sequence again. So if I put that together slowly they’re all eighth notes. You can do it all on down strokes with the right hand.
Conclusion
Right on well I hope that helps you out. Be sure to click the link below to subscribe and we’ll catch you in the next video lesson. Thanks for watching How To Play “Don’t Fear the Reaper” by Blue Öyster Cult.
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