Walk This Way Guitar Lesson – Aerosmith

Genre:

Difficulty:
Length: 5:24

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Wikipedia page
Artist website
Music video

• Barre chords
• Palm muting
• Power chords
• Vibrato

Walk This Way is a really groovy song by Aerosmith. It has a couple of really catchy riffs that will be really hard to get out of your head after you learn them with this lesson :-).

The song itself is fairly simple. The intro riff uses single-string plucking and some vibrato, perfect for beginner guitarists as well. The challenge here is to play the song with the correct rhythm, you may need to practice that for a while.

The next riff (verse) will use palm-muted single-string plucking, and will really give your pinky a stretch workout. Don’t worry if you can’t play it at first, this part of the song can be a bit harder if your fingers aren’t used to such movement yet, so practicing this song will be really beneficial in developing the strength and coordination of your pinky.

Next, you’ll learn a couple of guitar chords that Aerosmith plays during the chorus. Playing full chords under distortion is not very common, since the gain really makes the sound of the strings played together dissonant. To be honest, this is my least favorite part of the song, but it still sounds funky in its own way. Anyhow, it’s good guitar chord fingering practice.

To sum it up, the Walk This Way beginner guitar lesson will give you a chance to practice lead guitar techniques, and give your fretting fingers a real workout since it is an energetic, fast-paced song.

Walk This Way song details

Walk This Way was released by Aerosmith in 1975, on the album Toys in the Attic. It was written by Steven Tyler and Joe Perry. This was one of the songs that really boosted the band's image and set their career on the right path. The song was re-released in 1986 with Run-DMC on their album Raising Hell, and once again became and worldwide hit. The Run D.M.C. version of the song helped break rap into mainstream popular music, being the first rap song to hit the Top 5.

If you listen to the lyrics, Steven Tyler tells the story of a high school boy losing his virginity. In the original version, he does this in a very rhythmic, accented way, which was a good basis for the rap remake.

Walk This Way awards and chart rankings

• Billboard Hot 100: #10 (1977)
• Billboard Hot 100: #4 (1986)
• Soul Train Music Award for Best Rap – Single (1987)
• VH1 – Greatest Hard Rock Songs of All Time: #8 (original version)
• VH1 - 100 Greatest Songs of Hip Hop: #4 (Run D.M.C. version)

If you want to refine the skills you learned in Walk This Way, check out these lessons on songs by clicking these links:
Barre chords / Palm muting / Power chords / Vibrato

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