Check out how to play Lonely Day by System Of A Down from Guitar Control instructor Darrin Goodman. Be sure to click the link for the free tabs to go along with the step by step video instruction and How To Play Lonely Day By System Of A Down.
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 Lonely Day by System Of A Down. This is a really cool song and not too tough to play. I’m tuned down a half step and I’m in drop C#. So basically what it is the whole guitar is tuned down a half step and then I’m tuning my sixth string so it’s the same as the fourth string and that’s basically all there is to it. So anyhow let’s get close up and take a look at How To Play Lonely Day By System Of A Down.
Lonely Day – Main Riff
All right so we’ve got this first riff here that is basically the intro, outro and it’s also the verse; so it’s kind of the main riff or the song. So we start off we’ve got A minor and I’m starting on the on the A string, so I’m going to call off the strings; so I’m going A, D, G, G and then when I go back to the D it’s open… Then we have B minor seven over G (Bm7/G); so I’m on the third fret of the low E with my third finger and then I’m on the second fret of the G string with my second finger. Now we’re gonna pick; E, D, G, B, G, D… so that’s the first two measures. Now we just go to a regular old C chord and now it’s; A, D, G, B, G and then the D string again but open… And then we have B minor six over F sharp (Bm6/F#); so now I’m on the second fret of the low E with my second finger and I’m on the first fret of the G string with my first finger and then the D and B strings are open. So now we’re going to go; E, D, G, B, G, D and then that just repeats… So this has got this kind of a real swing to it because it’s actually in six eight (6/8). So that’s it’s four measures long and it’s really easy to tell this part of the song when you listen to it and it just repeats… all right so then that leads us into our next section of Lonely Day, which is the chorus.
Chorus
So for the chorus and this part is played with overdrive, but I’m just going to show you these chords with a clean tone for right now. So the very first chord is a B5. So we’re going to come all the way up here to the seventh fret and my first finger is just going to bar across the E, A and D strings and then my third finger is going to go onto the ninth fret of the G string and my fourth finger onto the tenth fret of the B string… then the rest of the chords in it are just regular power chords, you’re in drop D so you’re just going to be barring at the same fret across the E, A and D strings. So we’ve got that B5 and then an E5, which is just the low E and the A strings open. So this has got that same kind of swing to it so this first strum here is a dotted quarter note so this is like; one, two and, three and… then we go to a G5. So now I’m going to barre my first finger across the third fret of the E and D strings and it’s that same rhythm… and then back to the E5 again… Now all the way up to the 10th fret for D5 and then F#5 down at the second fret and then it just repeats; so that whole thing… All right and so then again that just repeats and when you listen to the song it’s really easy to tell which part of the song that is and it just repeats and then I think it goes; intro, verse, chorus and then another verse and then another chorus and then it goes to the Bridge section of Lonely Day that we’re going to look at now.
Bridge
Okay so for this Bridge section it’s just using the same power chords we’ve already been using, but it just kind of changed it up a little bit. So we start off with the G5, so again I’m just barring my first finger across the third fret of the E, A and D strings… So now we’ve got a dotted quarter note and then three eighth notes, so this is like one, two and, three and… and then we’re gonna move down to F#5 so it’s gonna move that down a half step, same thing, and then on the last strum we slide to the fifth fret, so it’s like… and when we slide up to the fifth fret and it’s just the same thing… Then we’re going to come back up to that B5 again, same thing, except now we’re going to do on the end of three it’s just going to go to the E5, so… and then back to the G5; so that’s the first five measures… And then we come back to the F#5 again and back up to A5 and back up to the B5 again… Then we’re going to come down here to the G5 again and it’s two measures of just straight eighth notes palm muted; one and, two and, three and, one and, two and, three and. And then down a half step to the F#5 and we’re going to palm mute; one and, two and, three and, one and, two and, three and, and then on the end of three it’s actually the E5… so that’s the bridge section and then after that it’s where it goes into the guitar solo… all right then that leads us into the last riff of Lonely Day, which is the outro.
Outro
The outro is actually just the same thing as the intro, it just has a little bit of a difference to it. It has a retard in it, so like a decrease in tempo. So we start off again with the A minor… so the second time around when we get to that Bm6 we do that slow down and then we get to this very last one here I’m going to put my first finger here on to the seventh fret of the D string and then my fourth finger onto the tenth fret of the G string and then my third finger on to the ninth fret of the G string. So now we’re going to pick the G string to the D string and remove our fourth finger and pick the third string back to the D string and then finally the last note is on the tenth fret of the B string; so it’s… and that’s the very end of it.
Conclusion
All right so I hope you enjoyed How To Play Lonely Day By System Of A Down and you got something out of it. Like I said this is a really cool song, I’m a big fan of System Of A Down. If you like this lesson be sure to give me a thumbs up. Leave me a comment down below if you have any questions and if you have not already done so please subscribe to the channel hit that notification bell so you don’t miss any of the content that we upload throughout the week. That is all I have for you today. Thanks for watching How To Play Lonely Day By System Of A Down and have a great day.
