How to play Superstition by Stevie Wonder


Perhaps the funkiest number one hit ever written, "Superstition", written by Stevie Wonder and Jeff Beck continues to bring da funk to the masses.

It is believed that Jeff Beck wrote the main guitar riff and was actually going to release it on his own album first, but Stevie Wonder beat him to the punch, and the rest is history.

In this video guitar lesson I will show you how to play Superstition note-for-note using the original recording by Stevie Wonder as our guide.

You will also need to tune your guitar down a half step for this one in order to play along not only with the original recording, but this video lesson as well.

The song starts out with that classic funky riff and continues to play it throughout most of the song with a lot of different variations. In the video lesson, I will show you a few of those variations but I will also stress coming up with your own. Those variations are all very similar and only use 5 or 6 notes so it is quite easy to come up with your own little variations. You can tell that is how the recording was approached anyway. Plus it makes for a very fun playing experience.

We also have the chord based section which would probably be called the pre-chorus. The chords used here sound quite dissonant on their own, but work well with the full band. These chords can also be quite a handful. I use my little finger as a guide finger through all of those chords, so pay close attention to that during the lesson. This will help you get those chord changes under your fingers much faster.

Other than the main riff and pre-chorus, we do have one cool little funky lick that was thrown in at the end of one of the pre-choruses. This lick moves around very fast and should be practiced on it's own until it is mastered. Breaking it down like this will help you grasp the little intricacies and rhythms of the lick. It is quite fun to play though once you get it in your hands.

So have fun playing this funky smash hit!

Carl...

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How to play Superstition by Stevie Wonder

2 Comments

  1. Luigino Brusco on May 3, 2015 at 5:29 am

    Also great in the SRV version!

  2. David Baker on May 28, 2016 at 5:17 pm

    Would you add his song “Jammin.” Thnx, David

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