Smokestack Lightnin' Guitar Lesson

The video

In this lesson Jed takes us through the blues classic Smokestack Lightnin' by Howlin' Wolf. It's got a catchy riff that perfectly supports the incredible vocal. As it's a blues standard, there are many different versions out there. Jed will take us through a couple of the guitar based ones. We highly recommend learning both to see which suits you best. Let's check out the video:

The riff

We kick off with the more self accompanied sounding version of the riff, where we have our thumb playing the underlying rhythm. We're based in E minor for this whole riff, and it runs over two bars. It's also very important to note that this whole riff has a swing feel, so our 'ands' aren't landing exactly halfway between the beats, they're a little later than that.

The notes

All of the lead notes are taken from E minor pentatonic shape 1 in the open position, with a little slide up into shape 2. Here are those shapes for you with the notes in the riff highlighted:

Make sure you're comfortable with the positions of all of the notes, and try to learn the whole riff through without the low E first, you can put that in later on. Remember not to use your thumb to play any of the notes. You'll need that next to put in the rhythm!

Thumb rhythm

In this version of the riff we are accompanying ourselves with the open E note played with the thumb, while lightly Palm muting the E string. That's a lot to think about even before merging in the lead part of the riff! If you're new to this take some time to just practice playing the low E string, Palm muted, on each beat. Make sure you're able to keep this at a very steady tempo, as this will be your pulse throughout the entire song! A metronome or drum machine can help a lot with this as it can highlight if you're moving out of time.

Combining

You may find that combining the main riff with the open E pulse feels intuitive, in which case, great! If you find it harder to put those two parts together it can really help to break down the parts to see on which beats you need to play two notes together, and on which off beats you need to play a note. We know that our thumb is playing on every beat, and only on the beats, so we need to work out when the melody part is playing too. Here are the two bars of the riff broken down rhythmically so you can see where the melody notes and pulse notes line up, and where they don't:

This is a great skill to work with, and can really give another dimension to your unaccompanied playing. There are definitely other recordings of this song without the underlying E pulse. If you're playing with other musicians you may decide not to play it, and leave that for another instrument, but try to make that decision based on the sound, rather than how difficult it is to nail the part!

Subtleties and variations

Throughout this riff there are slides, bends and grace notes which really add to the 'feel' of the tune. This is where you get into the idea realms of thinking about not just what you play but 'how you play it'. Slides can be between two definitive notes, or you can just slide into a note, with the 'starting note' being an instantaneous grace note. Experiment with this and see where it takes you. Bending is very subjective, but you can hear Jed adding in microtonal bends on various notes in this riff. Microtonal bends are just very small bends that don't quite push the note all the way up, hinting at the next note but not quite getting there - great for adding tension! These are often written out as quarter note bends, but you have to use your ear to hear what sounds right to you. A good place to start is bending a minor 3 towards a major 3.

After the vocal starts there is a variation in the melody of the riff. We're still in the same box, but the highest note changes. Try to visualise that on the fretboard as you're playing.

Your own interpretation

Beyond that variation in the track itself, as Jed mentions in the video you can throw in your own ideas too. This riff is perfect for adding in double stops and hammer on/pull off ideas to really make it your own. You could also try notes outside the pentatonic (the blues scale is a nice place to start!). Jed gives you an example in the video and we would encourage you to come up with your own version too!

The rest of the song

That's it! There are no other sections to this song, you play the riff all the way through! This gives you a lot of room to experiment with things like dynamics and variations on the riff. Try to leave room for that incredible vocal though!

Conclusion

While this may seem like a simple song when you consider the structure, there is still a lot to learn from it with the independent melody and rhythm in the riff, and the need for a consistent feel through a whole song. Don't just master the riff, make sure you can play along with the whole thing! Thank you to Jed for the brilliant explanation of this one, and we'll see you next time.