Come As You Are

Come As You Are is a perfect beginner song, as the main riff is very manageable if you’re just getting started. The choice is yours, but don’t be late on learning this classic Nirvana song!

The tuning

The tuning isn’t standard, we’ve got to lower each string a whole tone. So the strings are tuned to D G C F A D. You can of course play the song in standard tuning, and it’ll still work, but you wouldn’t be able to play along with the song! Give it a try and I’m sure you’ll have a lot more fun learning it!

And just to clarify, we’re going to refer to the chords and notes as if we were in standard tuning.

The main riff

To play the main riff of Come As You Are, we’re just going to need two fingers (the index and the middle finger) as we only play on the first two frets of the low E and A strings. The riff starts with a “pickup melody” where we only play on the low E string. We start on the “and” of beat 3 by playing the open E string, then play that string open again on beat 4, then move up to fret 1 on the “and” of beat 4, before landing on fret number 2 on beat 1 of the next bar.

Because that pickup melody starts before the first bar of the song, every time we’re going to jump back to that riff, we’ll have to stop our strumming pattern a bit early in order to play that pickup melody again!

Once we have landed on fret 2 of the E string, we’re going to play the A string open, then we go back to fret 2 on the E string again, then back to the A string, and back again on fret 2. So make sure your middle finger stays on fret 2 of the E string when playing that part. After this little back and forth, we’re going to play fret 2 twice, before playing fret 1, and then the open E string.

The last part of the riff (second bar) starts on the open E string. We then play the A string on fret 2 with our middle finger, then the E string open twice, back to fret 2 on the A string again, and back to the open E string.

To finish off, we play fret 1 on the E string, which allows us to loop around the whole riff, essentially playing the same pickup melody we saw at the start!

Just so you know, this riff is played over shape 5 of the minor pentatonic scale, with fret 1 on the low E string acting as a passing note!

At the end of the riff, there’s a subtle E that we can play to help us jump into the next part. When you get onto the last bar of the main riff, you can play this E on the “and” of beat 2.

The bridge

On the bridge, we’re going to need F#sus4 and A.

We’re going to play each chord for one bar, with a different pattern for each chord.

Once you’re more comfortable with the patterns, we can start adding some accents on these chords. We want to add an accent on the “and” of beat 2, and the “and” of beat 4.

Adding an accent is not just about playing the strings harder, but also targeting different strings. On this particular song, try to target the higher strings of the chords! Also, when transitioning from the A back onto F#sus4, don’t be afraid of playing some open strings, almost as if the open G, B and E strings formed a little transition chord.

To finish this bridge, remember that to get back to the main riff, we have to jump to the pickup melody we saw earlier. So, instead of playing a full pattern on the last A of the bridge, start playing the riff on the “and” of beat 3.

The chorus

In the chorus, we’re going to need a B5 and a D5.

The rhythm of the chorus is pretty straightforward, we’re playing each chord for one bar, and we’re strumming downstrokes on all the eighth notes:

Here again, if we’re going back to the main riff after the chorus, we have to cut the pattern short to play our pickup melody.

The solo

The solo of Come As You Are is in F# minor (again, in standard tuning!) and is played over shapes 3 and 4 of the pentatonic scale. It’s a simple and effective melody, played mainly on the G string. Overall, it’s a great solo for beginners to learn!

We start by playing fret 6 on the G string twice, then fret 9, followed by fret 11. We repeat that three times, but the third time we play fret 11, we’re going to play a unison bend by bending fret 11 on the G string while holding down fret 9 on the B string.

This entire phrase is then repeated four times!

In conclusion

This is a great song to learn if you’re a beginner! The main difficulty is probably the F#sus4, but you could always focus on the main riff and the solo at first!