Welcome to the “Beginner Slide Guitar” series of lessons. Today we are looking at Tom Petty’s hit song “Won’t Back Down,” which features some excellent slide guitar techniques. The song is in E minor and switches to the relative Major, G, for the choruses. That’s a cool songwriting technique to add a different feel and dynamic to a piece of a song. The verses, intro, and lead guitar solo are all in E minor. They have a tight palm-muted feel, then when the chorus kicks in it blasts into a wide-opened, full-throttle dynamic in the Major.
Intro Lead part, Simple yet powerful
The lead guitar slide parts are all out of the E minor pentatonic scale. We will first look at the intro lead guitar part. This comes right in at the very beginning of the song. It last two progressions, and is four measures long. The first note rings for half the intro, two measures. The idea is to get some big sustain out of your notes using compressors and overdrive effects pedals. It’s a very straightforward, Pentatonic pattern 1 lick. Feel free to add some vibrato on your slide, it helps keep the note alive.
Main Solo, All SLIDE
Although the intro is very straightforward from pattern 1, the main solo bounces throughout most patterns. Since it’s a pentatonic scale there are a few different ways to play the solo while still being note-for-note correct. Tabbed below is the way I prefer to play it, and I think it sounds great. Be sure to add plenty of vibratos to encourage the sustain. I have both guitar parts tabbed below to help show the rhythmic patterns of it all. Notice how minimal the lead part actually is. Often times tasty slide guitar work doesn’t require a ton of notes, just quality choices for each note chosen, especially on the notes you choose to sustain and land on. Of course properly using some effects, like compressors and dirt boxes, is almost always necessary to get the right tone and sustain for slide work. Experiment with delay and reverb thrown at the end of your signal chain, as each situation will be different. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions drop a comment below. Also, keep an eye out for the next installment in the series “Beginner slide guitar.”
