Deep Purple - Black Knight Guitar Lesson

"Black Knight" by Deep Purple is one of the essential riffs at intermediate level one, primarily because it uses the E minor pentatonic scale moving up to the middle octave. I've got a tube screamer on my sound to make it squashy - you tend to need a booster pedal in front of your amp to get that crunchy sound. Other than that, I'm just on the crunch setting on the Boss Katana.

Main Riff

The main riff notes are 7-5-7-5-7-5-7-5-7-7-5-7, all using E minor pentatonic. The 7th fret is our E octave note which centers this riff. The baseline that starts the song goes 7-5-7-3 in a triplet pattern - one and a two and a three and four and. This tells you the song has a triplet groove with a bounce like a blues shuffle.

Rolling Technique

We'll need a rolling technique to play seven to seven on string five then string four. It's done with the tip of the third finger, then flatten off that third finger. That's how we get these two notes not ringing out over each other. That riff alone is one of the essential riffs from intermediate level one. The fancy bits in the chorus are grade three stuff, so you don't need to master the whole song to pass level one - just get that riff with the vibe of the original.

Verses

The verses are quite easy - just 5-7-7-7-7 and repeats. This is on the beat and then on the ands, so play down-up-up-up-up just like strumming. You could add a root note underneath or play it as power chords, but we only need the single note as written.

Chorus Section

The chorus is trickier. We have a slide that moves us to ninth fret then slide back with a hammer-on flick-off combo - pick, flick off, hammer on, flick off, pick, hammer on, flick off. I'm not picking every note. Then we slide down to third fret doing this octave-to-octave move with one finger - great grade three technique.

Then we jump up to E minor pentatonic shape one. This bit's pretty tricky but it's got very cool Chuck Berry or Angus Young style licks - same licks used in "Highway to Hell" actually. There's a bend at 14th fret, then down to power chord 7-5 with hammer-on 5-3.

Second Chorus Variation

In the second chorus there's a slightly different lick - 14 twice, 12-14-14 with a bend up, then twice going 14 flick off pick. This is where we do that rolling technique again but with a flick off. The index finger has to mute strings for this to work.

There's some crazy solos and effects from Ritchie Blackmore at a higher level than even grade three. Learn this song but no need to nail everything. Add them to your practice routine and you'll get them over time. If you keep circling back to hammer-ons, string bending, vibrato, you're not starting from the beginning - you're adding to your technique and moving forward.