Creep Guitar Lesson – Radiohead

In this video guitar lesson, I will show you note-for-note how to play Radiohead's breakthrough hit "Creep".

In this Creep guitar lesson, I will not only show you all the chords, but in addition, I will break down guitarist Jonny Greenwood's tremolo picked octaves played during all the chorus' including the extended ending chorus.

The entire song is based around a simple four chord progression using bar chords. When playing these chords you will need to use an arpeggio picking style throughout all the verse sections. There is no definitive picking pattern because it changes gradually throughout the song. The main thing you will need to focus on during the picking pattern is to slowly make your way to the higher pitched strings every time you play through the verse chords. This will all make a lot more sense after watching the video lesson.

The real guitar fireworks happen during the chorus when the distortion is kicked in and we have a couple of separate guitar parts being played simultaneously. During the first chorus you will begin the octave melody when the C major chord arrives. The first chorus cuts the octave melody short, but the extended chorus and the end of the song let's the entire octave melody be heard.

When learning this extended octave part, you may need to watch that section of the lesson multiple times and memorize the numbers of the frets to play the octaves on a section at a time. The chord form never changes and it always remains on the same strings so you can just focus on the fret numbers and the rapid tremolo picking.

Speaking of that tremolo picking, just as I suggest it the video lesson, rapid strumming is easier on the picking hand if you temporarily raise your wrist. It gives you a better angle to strike the strings and helps you keep your wrist and forearm relaxed, which is essential when attempting something that is this fast for this long amount of time.

So enjoy learning this incredible Radiohead classic, it is definitely one of my favorites from the 90's. 🙂

Carl...

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Creep Guitar Lesson - Radiohead