Where The Streets Have No Name Guitar Lesson – U2 – Famous Riffs
Today's video guitar lesson is not only a lesson on playing the intro to "Where the Streets Have No Name" by U2, but also how to achieve the same dotted 8th note delay effect The Edge uses throughout.
This delay effect guitar sound is so essential to how you actually play the riff that any lesson on how to play it would be incomplete without the knowledge of how to achieve that tone.
Be sure to download the PDF below that lays out the simple math formulas needed in order to know how to set up a dotted 8th note effect no matter what you tempo you are playing in or what type of delay device you own.
The Edge Dotted 8th Note Delay Settings PDF Download
After you have your tone dialed in, actually playing the riff is quite simple.
We have a series of 6 repeated notes that just seem to float over the underlying chord progression implied by the bass guitar. This kind of musical effect is very common in U2's music and of course countless other bands that have utilized the technique since then.
Be sure to articulate the guitar lines accurately so that all of the notes pop out nicely. Besides the delay, try to use a single coil guitar with the pickup selector in the 2nd position.
Alright that is about it, have fun with this Where The Streets Have No Name guitar lesson video and remember, after learning the intro, try coming up with your own timed delay effect riffs. Fair warning though, playing with this type of tone can certainly become addicting. 🙂
Carl..
If these free lessons help you, please donate to keep new ones coming daily. Thanks!! 🙂
Thanks for that super cool riff and also for explaining how to get the delay effect right.
Super job, Carl
Hi Carl,,,Thank you for the great lesson and explanation on Delay settings..Ter
thanks so much for this! U2 are my all time fav, so I know their stuff, and the guitar parts better than anything else, but edge makes them all soo difficult to even attempt to approximate. thank you, and rest of song would be fantastic.
hi, i missed soemting,… where does the 60000 come from?
60 seconds in a minute, but 1,000 milliseconds per second, so 60 x 1,000 = 60,000 milliseconds per minute.
Carl
can you provide a tutorial for the rest of the song please!
Armand
second position a Strat I assume is bridge & middle pick up ?