How To Play Smoke On The Water On Guitar

In 1972 a popular British guitar-oriented band recorded an album called Machine Head. One of the songs on that album is titled Smoke On The Water and is one of the most popular songs of all time. It contains the definitive guitar riff – the one that everybody plays of there is a guitar in the room and people start fooling around with it.

The song tells the story of a fire at a Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention concert in Switzerland at which a fire broke out and the smoke could be seen spreading across Lake Geneva. The song was not recognized as a potential classic and for until it was included on the album which meant it needed a title, it was known to the group as “the dank-dank song” because of how the riff sounded when you hummed it.

Even though starting to learn how to play the guitar requires some retraining of your muscles you can get through learning basic chords and riffs soon enough so you can play things like the Smoke On The Water riff fairly soon. Playing this riff is in the spirit of the electric guitar and rock and roll because it is fun.

If you go to Ultimate Guitar you will find tab for Smoke On The Water. Tab is just a picture of the guitar neck with the fret numbers you have to play written on the strings that you have to play. Once you have worked out the basic idea behind guitar tab you’ll be playing the song (as opposed to the riff alone) in no time.

Here’s a playing tip: everybody says that Ritchie Blackmore played the riff using his fingers instead of a pick. Remember to say that to people when you play it, and if anyone says “I knew that” it means they are probably cool but far too old to have sex with.

There are other classic songs you could learn to impress people like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Stairway To Heaven” but “Smoke On The Water” is the one that will get the crowd’s attention which makes it the one to learn how to play.

Here’s Deep Purple playing the song in 1973 . . .