Wikipedia page
Artist website
Music video- Power chords
- Strumming patterns
- Vibrato
If you like punk rock and power chords, you’ll love our electric guitar lesson on American Idiot.
The song has a couple of very nice chord progressions and interesting strumming patterns, that will really develop your knowledge of power chords, and your power chord strumming technique.
You’ll be strumming power chords very fast in American Idiot, which requires you to strum up-down, a technique not as easy as it seems, since you need to concentrate on strumming just 2-3 strings, without hitting the rest of the strings.
The song also has a couple of nice licks, which will develop your single-string alternate picking technique. And as with most punk rock songs, you will be playing it under heavy distortion, which is great if you like the genre.
Learning to play American Idiot on the guitar is great fun, and gives you a chance to practice many useful techniques that you’ll be using in other songs. So just turn up your distortion, and let ‘er rip 🙂
Once you're done, check out some more of our guitar lessons for beginners.
American Idiot Song Details
American Idiot is the first single from Green Day’s 7th album, American Idiot, released in 2004. This song was a real breakthrough for Green Day, as their career had been on the low for a while. This song brought the band recognition in the UK as well, as it became their first top 5 single.
American Idiot Awards and Chart Rankings
- Billboard Hot 100: #61
- UK: #3 top single
- Australia: #7 top single
- Canada: #1 top single
- The song was featured in a number of movies, such as Simpsons: The Movie and Wedding Crashers.
If you want to refine the skills you learned in American Idiot, check out these lessons on songs by clicking these links:
Power chords / Strumming patterns / Vibrato
Download tabs for American Idiot
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Download backing track for American Idiot
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