Hey, this is Shawn Daniel with Guitar Control, we’re going to cover the classic awesome ZZ Top riff sharp-dressed man which is so good we’re going to pretend like the music video never actually happened.
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We’re going to talk about some different techniques of Billy Gibbons he’s just an awesome player that used plays the strip from the song. So the intro is great and we’re going to do it all in the C minor pentatonic shape here. If you don’t know that it’s the 8th fret on the E-string 8-11, 8-10, 8-10, 8-10, 8-11, and 8-11. Now it starts off with a power chord which is just 8E, 10A, and 10D, so we’ve got three strings going on here, we’re going to get the A and D-string first together and then the C, the root note 8th fret all by itself, so that’s going to be the whole first part and the riff repeats a lot throughout.
Now if you notice he actually uses his thumb for the low E-string but I’ve never really got done with that so if you want to do that if you want to play with your thumb go for it, that’s going to be the most accurate way to do it we’re just going to do it kind of with our fingers. So again after that first kind of power chords and that only happens the first time at the very beginning of the song he jumps into these blues double stops or power forwards kind of taken from this shape this is pentatonic shape, so you can use your ring finger to barre them if you want you can use your ring finger and you can use your pinky whatever you want to do as long as you can get two of these strings down at the same time and we’re going to test right on the D and G-string.
I’m going to use my ring finger most of the time here and I’m going to jump to the root note which is the C pointer finger A, E, and then after the first time we’re going to do the same kind of double stop but now we’re on the 8th fret, 8B & 8G, so 10th fret root note D-N-G, on the 8th fret you can see that your wrist is going to be really important kind of moving the angle of your hand around to get that tone right, to get to get both of these strings to ring and they’re not sustained you do feel like I kind of really choke right away and then after we get the 8th fret B and D- string your ring finger is going to kind of come down on the 10th fret of the D string all right so if we think of the melody of this riff it’s kind a like this we’re just super simple but we’re kind of beating it up with these power chords and double stops so we’ve got the next program which is going to be a circular motion between all these three spots on the fret board so you really notice your wrist kind of moving kind of get the most efficient way in here so again after the first part I’m going to get two more of the root note, we’ve go 2 on the C, A-D and then we just go back to these double stop. The 10th fret because a strap one more root and then we’ve got the 10th fret on the D-string which is really just an octave to C and a higher C, again and that last one has a little vibrato so again really slow the whole thing from the beginning we’ll add the first power chords and then we’re going to travel into this little rest like up here oh I was troubled a for ways to play this you play it in power chords but we’re going to the G I’m low E-string which is the 3rd fret and you can do this just kind of keep it straight power chords we’re just going from one two three a B flat to an F around C you thought yeah that’s fine I think the way he plays it he’s actually kind of doing it in an open position where he’s going like a which is kind of like a c-shape right as we talked about before this is minor so we don’t want the major third in the C your middle finger right there without major third we don’t want it so you can make a C shape but let’s make sure we don’t hear this E note. Now the reason I think this is what we plan is because you can kind of hear the difference between getting this B in the 1st fret on the B-string and the open G and the difference between that and a power chord again it’s essentially the same thing but ah that’s got a little more action to it because that open string whatever you know you can play it either way you want whatever is easier for you I’m not going to mad you whichever one you choose to do but either way it’s a breeze I’m here one a three and if you’re going to do it in the open position use your ring finger if you’re going to do it in power chord position slide into doesn’t really matter again I think I would challenge yourself to kind of get this because a little more ah I feel like the comb is a little more of like a ZZ Top Thank You Billy get your thing right so again we’ve got this riff that starts down here and then you go right back into it right
So the test thing about this is if you’re doing it solo I think that’s kind of like two guitars in the album version if you’re doing this solo from here pretty quick thing but you know you can do it it’s just practice that’s why you might want to do the power board at home because you’re a little poster where you have to get back because the second time you do it you don’t start in that power chord you go right to the double stop alright so basically that just kind of repeats on a loop over and over again okay until we finally get to the verses the voice is going to be the same thing in the second part of that intro graph and we’ll do this in power chord form but you can do it what’s the open court to you but we’re just going to start on three year one a to that power chord on three a which is the C power chord of C and E and another case of free ride my baby again if this power chord so it’s not major or minor but we’re thinking and minor pentatonic so we’ve got G flat and they’re going to take the shape move it down a step so it’s going to be a pick lied and I think that second pick is an upstroke so and this one you can kind of just roll this chord up right so if I’m rooted on the first scrap of a string together right here and I just roll my hand off so from the C to D flat to a nap and then you go back here good b-flat to the app and then when it gets to kind of like the pre-chorus I got this act a G one two three and then do the same thing down a stringer and then it’s the never go crazy about a sharp-dressed man right now the advice of the song is write out you know every girl is crazy about a sharp-dressed man however in my experience I have a friend who has like a grizzly huge beard and I kind of feel like even though dressing sharply helps your game having a giant beard decreases your game in most cases so I think if you have a ZZ Top like beard and you’re dressed sharply that kind of puts you back to even but anyways this is my own personal experience I could be wrong about that again it’s my two cents so after we do this kind of thing where we go from the be excited to see you about a shove just me you guys really cool quick power chord thing we’ve got 6a up to sixty year down to the theater and that’s going to start the whole cycle over so they say that’s the whole thing we’re kind of is going in a kind of a circular pattern throughout the fret board so it’s a really great song to kind of learn getting to different frets and just kind of you know working those power chords in a very cool way so definitely if you have any questions let me know make sure it’s a like button and don’t forget to subscribe on our You Tube Channel and we’ll see you in our next video lessons, thanks for watching.
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