Welcome to the guitar lesson for song 1 of the Andy Guitar Band Program - Seven Nation Army by The While Stripes!
This is a classic band anthem and is the perfect first song for any band to learn. If you're a guitarist, you don’t even need a bass player, but if you have one - they do get their moment in the sun as the riff is the true backbone of the song.
We'll be learning this in standard tuning. We will also learn how to play the solo, we won't be using a slide, we'll just be playing it normally.
Let's get started!
Song breakdown
Main Guitar Riff
The chorus is essentially the bassline played as power chords with an extra variation added. This can be played with standard power chords or even just with 1 finger, which is more similar to how Jack White plays it (in open A tuning, which is quite advanced!).
The solo is originally played with a slide, which can make it much tricker to play (plus not everyone has a slide) so here we do a version without needing a slide.
This solo uses lead guitar techniques such as string bending and vibrato.
Andy Guitar Band - Live cover of Seven Nation Army
Remember, to play in a live band you don't just practice till you can get it right, you need to practice till you never get it wrong! Therefore it is an essential part of this course that you revisit these pages and play along to the live covers like you're a in a real band and you're rehearsing your live set! Here's the live cover alone so you can jam along to the live band without having to search through the tutorial video - enjoy jamming along!
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Need more help than this tutorial provides?
Check out some of Andy's recommended courses below.