Reptilia - The Strokes

The song we're going for is "Reptilia" by The Strokes. The two chords I'm playing over are a B minor chord barring at the seventh fret to an E major chord also barring at the seventh fret. Therefore this song is in the key of B minor, and we could play the B minor pentatonic scale, which is the framework for this lead line I'm going to be learning.

The Opening Notes

The three notes that start this riff are one, two, three on the middle two strings. Starting off string three with the first finger at the seventh fret, third finger then goes to ninth fret and first finger to seventh fret on string four. On the amplifier I'm on the crunch setting, but I've used a Tube Screamer low gain overdrive that goes ahead of the amplifier. These single coils tend to need a little bit of a kick.

Muting Technique

We play that first note one, two, three. Importantly there is a pause after the first two, so we have to relax this finger. But also you can hear there is sometimes just some extra noise with these guitars - strings and everything can ring out, so we really want to mute it with this hand. Outside of the palm of your hand or the thumb side - that is what we need. We need silence. We need to tame the beast of lead guitar. We play it twice, mute, play it one more time.

Moving Out of Position

Then we're going to move one fret down, slightly outside of that minor pentatonic framework. We're going to slide from this sixth fret all the way to ninth fret and then also to 12th fret. I think most people are going to find it easier to play that last one with the third finger, which means all that second part is all on one string. These one-string melodies and one-string riffs are so important because they move us out of one position. We want to get used to that minor pentatonic position one and learn some riffs such as this, but then move out of it and slide to new parts of the neck. This is the best riff I know of that will do that.

The Slide

We don't even have to pick when we do that slide - it's really cool. There's two chords, B minor to E major, but we can use a capo at seventh fret if you're not comfortable with bar chords yet. Being able to strum at that tempo is going to be really important - we need the wrist very small motions, very light. Let the guitar do the work for you. Keep all your strumming arm, shoulder, forearm and wrist relaxed with controlled motions but don't hold tension. We need to be relaxed to play faster. Let's play along to this at 50 BPM super slow and then 75%.