I’m returning to Johnny Marr with this look at one of my favourite Smiths tracks.
And towards the end of this video we have some great footage of Marr playing some bits of the song:
A word on the tuning
For this video I’m tuned to open E (EBEG#BE). I’ve read that in the studio Marr actually tuned to open D (DADF#AD) and put a capo on at the 2nd fret. This gives you exactly the same notes, so really amounts to the same thing. It’s up to you which tuning you decide to use. For all the live Smiths and solo footage I’ve seen, Marr is tuned to open E.
Music/tab
I’ve written out the music and tab below. It’s not perfect, but should steer you in the right direction. Feel free to make changes and adjustments where you see fit. In particular the strumming rhythms can be varied a bit throughout the song. Downloadable PDF version here.
Further Related Lessons
The first Smiths song I looked at on this site was the masterful This Charming Man. More recently I made a video on the beautiful acoustic track Back to the Old House.
Why not also check out the style of one of Johnny Marr’s favourite players, James Williamson, in this lesson on The Stooges Gimme Danger? I’d say this song was possibly at the back of Marr’s mind when he came up with the Headmaster Ritual riff.
Another of Marr’s favourite players is the Pretenders’ James Honeyman-Scott. So maybe check out this lesson on the song Kid. What a guitar solo!