How to Play Stop! by Jane’s Addiction


We have a fun one to learn today with Jane's Addiction's hard rocking classic "Stop!".

Released in 1990 on their album Ritual de lo Habitual, "Stop!" went on to become a No.1 hit on the billboard modern rock charts.

In this guitar lesson, I will show you how to play Stop!, including all of it's killer guitar riffs and Dave Navarro's frantic guitar solo.

The song begins with a funky guitar intro using a E7#9 chord shape. This chord has been called the Hendrix chord ever since Jimi used it all over the place in his music. The dissonance of this chord really helps to propel the song's nervous energy. However, the main focus on this riff will be the rhythm since that will be the most difficult thing to master.

Keep a nice consistent 8th note strumming pattern (down/up) going while applying the proper muting. The great thing is the chord doesn't move around very much and stays the exact same shape the entire time so it will be easy to mostly concentrate on that rhythm.

From there full band comes in and we arrive at a fast power riff that requires you to be able to move power chords around the fretboard very rapidly. Once you get this riff up to speed though, it is a lot of fun to play.

When we finally make it to the verse of "Stop!", we have another hard driving power chord riff that uses liberal palm muting to create a sort of percussive effect. This riff is actually very reminiscent of the Red Hot Chili Pepper's verse riff in "Higher Ground".

Everything eventually breaks down into a slow half-time feel where Dave Navarro allows the chords to ring out while he adds some slight chord embellishments. Make sure you move into the proper chord voicings when the vocals come in to make sure this part sounds as big as possible.

Next up in this lesson will be a note-for-note breakdown of Dave Navarro's high octane guitar solo. He doesn't really hold anything back here with large bends, Yngwie inspired shred licks, SRV inspired licks and a dramatic chromatic finish.

After I am done teaching the solo I will show you the riff that happens towards the end of the song where everything is brought down to a very quite level and Dave Navarro employs some simple double-stops around the fretboard with a clean guitar tone.

There is a lot to learn here so let's get to it! 🙂

Carl...

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How to Play Stop! by Jane's Addiction

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