Notice
Most of the song uses fairly simple (and conventional) fingerpicking and strumming techniques. However, the addition of percussion can cause what was easy unaccompanied to be an absolute nightmare! This is particularly evident in the chorus section - where your hands must move very quickly and precisely between the frets and the body to create the correct rhythm.
I put the "drum" sounds on a seperate stave for reading convenience (and for those of you who don't want to hurt your poor defencless guitars - miss them out) I've used 'x's on the different strings to represent different sounds on the guitar body. These are as follows:
6th String - Right hand palm 'karate chop' on bridge (NB: this is often used simultaneously with a struming movement, by flicking out the fingers from a fist to an open hand, so timing between the chop and the strum is essential).
5th String - N/A
4th String - Right hand ball of thumb slap on the upper bout of the guitar above neck join.
3rd String - Left hand knuckles or finger nails on the edge of the body beneath the neck (this should make a short, sharp, 'snapping' sound) You have to strike quite fast and hard for this one to sound right. And yes... it does hurt!
2nd String - Right hand finger(s) slap against edge of body farthest from neck (aim slightly lower than you might think to produce the 'snare' sound required) Be sure to slap the guitar VERY hard with your finger(s) held completely flat to avoid a muted sound - spank that plank!
1st String - N/A
If you feel reasonably comfortable with all this, just add more fills, using radid rasgueado's on the body or any other techniques you come up with... Just be careful not to sacrifice the tune for the sake of percussion, you are a guitarist after all!
These will be new techniques to a lot of people but if you can pick them up and incorporate them into your own playing, you can make a solo performance SO much more interesting both for you and the audience - it just take a little bit of careful arrengement to make all those drum noises fit in snuggly with the rest of the tune. Other points of note are:
Bars 15/16 - This syncopated rhythm takes a while to get up to speed while remaining coherent; be careful NOT to hit the top string unless prompted as this will kill this part. The pull-offs must also be performed with some 'oomph' in order to be audable over the 'bass drum'.
Bar 22 - The fast triplet 'drum roll' is created by rapping the nails or knuckles of the right hand against the body as you would a rasgueado in flamenco. Be sure not to hesitate when you have finished this move as its on to muted strums immediately after.
Bar 25 - The open string can be tricky to get ringing out with the semitione bend, but it is essential to the 'out of tune - out of control' feel.
Bars 29 to 32 - For the solo to stand out and to maintain the 'full' feeling of the piece, the solo is not played on the guitar at all, but rather - sang. Using a fuzz box and octave pedal (ala Matt Bellamy) is the ideal setup to create the best grungy sound out of your voice, but isn't absolutely neccissary (come to think of it, the entire solo isn's needed if you don't want it! I use it more for spice anyway!) Be sure to throw in some Kurt-esq wrong notes for authenticity!
Oh, and if you really want to show off, don't just let that final chord die out... oh no... SHRED!!! Or do something equally outrageous and
anti-Nirvana... as long as its visually spectacular (I tend to end by playing around with natural harmonics/bends with both hands ABOVE the neck and swapping which hand picks and which frets etc... totally unneccissary, but I find it does the trick...)
Phew!!!!
Once you have all that nailed try singing the lyrics as well.
This piece is a sure fire way to stun EVERYONE at your next open mic night/party/street corner with your uncanny ability to be not just a guitarist - but a bassist, drummer and singer ALL at the same time! And its a popular tune - so non guitarists won't be alienated! YAY!!!
Enjoy and feel free to share this arrangement, but please give the appropriate credit where due (ie: ME!!! MWAHAHAHAHA!!!)
Cheers!