Helter Skelter Guitar Lesson – The Beatles

In this video guitar lesson I will show you how to play "Helter Skelter", one The Beatles' most original songs and one that was a huge inspiration to young teens everywhere who were soon going to create a little musical style we now know as heavy metal.

Paul McCartney penned this Beatles classic because he wanted to create the loudest and most raucous piece of music ever recorded. Underneath the screaming vocals and massive tape effects "Helter Skelter" contains some pounding guitar riffs.

In this Helter Skelter guitar lesson video I will demonstrate how to play all the chords and riffs that make up "Helter Skelter", along with the cool guitar solos as well.

The opening of the track consists of some tension building fast down stroke doublstops that slowly lead into the explosive verse. That verse stays put for a lot of the time on a simple E7 chord while slightly creating an out of tune vibe by pulling on the guitar neck and using lots of effects.

The chorus contains a very cool (and instantly identifiable) descending guitar lick that really propels the track into an all new territory. Within all of this reckless abandon it is really cool to hear little guitar gems like that.

There are also a couple of guitar solos within the song. I cover both of those as well. I am not exactly sure who is performing the guitar solos within this song since Paul McCartney did take over the lead guitar reigns from time to time.

The first solo consists of some wild yet controlled bends. It is quite short and to the point but provides a perfect musical statement over the chaos going on in the underlying music.

The second guitar solo is pretty much just a quick little fill but contains some well executed bends and slides. I will break it down for you phrase by phrase so you shouldn't have any issue learning how it is properly played.

So I hope you guys enjoy learning this wildly creative song by The Beatles from a time when it was actually encouraged to be different, even within popular music. Imagine that!! (No pun intended)

Carl...

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Helter Skelter Guitar Lesson - The Beatles