“IN BLOOM”

Nirvana

ALTERNATIVE/

PUNK ROCK legend Kurt Cobain had quite the knack for coming up with fairly simple yet musically compelling and huge-sounding guitar riffs that perfectly matched and supported his captivating vocals and sardonic lyrics. This classic track from Nirvana’s landmark second album, Nevermind, features the electric singer-songwriter’s signature use of shifting power chords and barre chords and pronounced emphasis on dynamics, or contrasts in volume and texture, varying his tone throughout the arrangement, from heavily distorted (intro and chorus sections) to clean with a chorusing effect (last four bars of each verse), to both (guitar solo), to nothing, completely laying out for the first half of each verse.

Joined by bassist Krist Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl, Cobain comes crashing in on the downbeat of bar 1 with a progression of accented root-5th-octave power chords on the bottom three strings, which he peppers with fleeting, almost unnoticed open-string strums (the open A, D and G strings). These “all-purpose passing chords” add a splash of chromatic color and dissonance to the proceedings while also conveniently giving the guitarist’s fret hand ample time to move from chord to chord. In bar 4, the band introduces the song’s verse riff, for which Cobain employs a different set of chord shapes, again liberally using his open strings as “fill.” Notice the difference in

Bb5 timbre between the two different chord grips used in bars 1 and 4, even though the notes are the same.

As if channeling the spirits of Jimi Hendrix, Albert King and/or Stevie Ray Vaughan, Cobain launches his psychedelic guitar solo (Section E) with a series of wailing, angst-fueled double-stop bends on the top two strings, for which he allows his bending finger on the high E string (most likely the ring finger, supported one fret below by the middle) to “snag” the B string and take it along for a gnarly, dissonant ride. Interestingly, the guitarist kind of does the opposite thing in bar 30, where he pulls the B string downward after releasing a push bend on the G string.