Best Of You Guitar Lesson

First up it's worth saying that Dave Grohl began his musical life as a drummer. We all know and love his work as the drummer of Nirvana, and as he transitioned to life as a guitar player and front man in Foo Fighters, a lot of those drumming habits came along with him. The rhythmical prowess of the Foo fighters riffs is hugely based on Dave's background as a drummer.

This is completely true in this song too, and as we'll see from the main riff, the accents he plays are the same as he would as a drummer, making the part quite unique.

Best Of You Main Chords

Ok so let's get started with the main riff! You'll be very happy to know that once you have this bit you have most of the song already, with a few minor tweaks in various sections. The whole riff utilises open strings as well as some quirky shapes, which you've likely never played before. Don't worry, they're not too hard once you get your fingers round the first chord. The chords are:

With these chords we are following this progression, | C#m7 | C#m7 | Asus2 | Asus2 | C#m7 | C#m7 | Asus2 | Asus2 | Bsus4 | Bsus4 | Asus2 | Asus2 |, which we use once time round for the intro and twice in the verses. As you'll discover working through it, the chords are all so similar that you can breeze through the changes, especially the change between C#m7 and Asus2, which requires you to lift just one finger!

As for the groove, we are doing all downstrokes, but the key element is to play the accents in the right places. This is a Dave Grohl masterclass in accenting specific beats, and in this case, we are accenting the "1", "2+" and "4" beats. That looks like this:

So the majority of your practice needs to simply be this section. The accented groove alongside the chord progression is the focus, and with that, you have the rest of the track in the palm of your hand! So work on that, and when you are ready, we'll tackle the other sections.

The Pre-Chorus & Chorus

The next section to be aware of is the pre-chorus, which comes in as the verse transitions into the chorus. There are no new chords to pay here, and we can stick to the same rhythm, but the order of chords changes. We now have | C#m7 | Bsus4 | Asus2 | Asus2 | which we repeat twice. You'll notice that as soon as we do one bar of C#m7 followed by the Bsus4, there is a big change in the track, as we've gone from repetitively doing two bars per chord, to now one bar per those two chords. These are great little songwriting tips to remember if you ever do write your own song.

After the pre-chorus, we get the chorus (you don't need to be a genius to work that one out, of course!), and we are introducing the final chord of the track. The chorus progression is | C#m7 | Bsus4 | Asus2 | F#11 | that we repeat all the way through the chorus! So, the big question is, what is the F#11 chord? Let's take a look:

At this point in the track, it's a good idea to slightly shift the rhythm accents. We will still be doing all downstrokes, but now we will be accenting only the main beats of "1, 2, 3 & 4". That looks like this:

The solo section & Conclusion

The final chord part to talk about is the chords under the solo. It's essentially a verse part, and looks like this: | C#m7 | C#m7 | Asus2 | Asus2 | C#m7 | C#m7 | Asus2 | Asus2 | Bsus4 | Bsus4 | Asus2 | Asus2 | Bsus4 | Bsus4 | Asus2 | Asus2 |. Use your ear here to follow the structure, and stick with the verse strumming pattern as well if you like. You are, of course, very welcome to change that up here, as the instrumentation gets a bit more manic, but there is no need to! See how you feel when you get to this section and let the "feels" guide you!

So, good luck getting this song together! It's a wonderful song to play along to as it's so full of energy and excitement! Please do share this blog post with your guitar-playing community, and we'll see you again for another!