VIDEO LESSON

Simple is often best, as the Young brothers demonstrate in this huge hit. The opening three chords (E5, D5 and A5) are beginner-friendly shapes. You just have to chop away firmly, keeping the idle strings quiet. The blues scale line that follows needs to be picked cleanly, and you’ll need to be prepared to jump back to the E5 chord quickly at the end. For the closing run on the sixth string pick with this pattern: down-up, up-down, down-up, up-down. Angus himself uses all downstrokes here (and you can easily swap to downpicking for that more urgent feel), but the down-up method is a great way to get a feel for the timing.

Appears at: 0:06-0:27

Tempo: 91 bpm

Key/scale: E blues scale

Main techniques: Open position powerchords, blues scale licks, syncopated riffing

TG TIP: This is a riff of three parts. Practise the powerchords, blues scale line and syncopated outro separately at first.