Misirlou Guitar Lesson – Dick Dale

In this Misirlou guitar lesson, I will show you to play this Dick Dale classic note-for-note.

We will be using standard tuning.

The most obvious technique used by Dick Dale throughout "Misirlou" is the rapid fire tremolo picking. In order to accomplish this and also make the guitar tone brighter, he chose to pick very close to the bridge.

Picking very close to the bridge makes the string feel tighter, which in turn can make it a bit easier to rapidly pick the string.

You will need a lot of endurance to make it through the entire song. The most important thing to remember is to try and keep your right hand wrist and forearm as relaxed as possible. That is very difficult to do because the picking is almost non-stop. "Misirlou" is a great exercise in staying relaxed during fast picking passages.

There is also a short chord section where the guitar takes a rhythm guitar approach underneath a trumpet solo. I will show you the chords used during this section of the song and it gives a chance for you to relax your picking hand a bit.

So I hope you enjoy learning this surf rock guitar workout!

Carl...

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Misirlou Guitar Lesson - Dick Dale