Nirvana are one of the most influential rock bands in history and are credited with spearheading somewhat of a musical revolution during the 90s “grunge era”, aka “The Seattle Sound”.
Coming off the back of the glitter-laden showy glam-rock style that was prevalent during the 80s, when Nirvana appeared with their stripped-down, raw, and unrefined sound, fans took to it immediately as a welcome reprieve, and the grunge era was born.
They remain one of the best-selling bands of all time, with over 75 million in album sales, not to mention multiple Brit Awards, Grammy Awards, and every other accolade a band could hope for.
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Their unique style puts a huge emphasis on memorable riffs that ooze personality and attitude, without a great deal of emphasis on technical ability, making Nirvana’s music well suited for beginner guitarists. So today we’ve gathered up 10 of their best songs that any beginner can learn on the acoustic guitar, and we’ll be taking a look at how both how they are played as well as some of the music theory concepts behind the compositions.
Released as the lead single from Nirvana’s highly anticipated, third (and final) studio album (In Utero) in 2003. Heart Shaped Box makes great use of some melodic dissonance and creative bends to create a gritty, moody feel.
The first thing you should to do play this song is get your acoustic guitar into drop C sharp tuning. This is essentially the same as regular drop D tuning, where you just lower the bottom E string by 2 semitones which allows you to play the power chord shape by just barring a single fret. But in addition to that, you’ll then drop every single string by an additional semitone.
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This will make your strings a little looser, but as you’ll be doing plenty of bends in the chorus of the song, the lower tension actually helps.
The track opens with some arpeggiated power chord shapes, which are simply regular power chords that you play 1 string at a time instead of all at once.
On the fourth bar of the main riff, there is a good use of the tritone or augmented fifth interval between the 3rd fret of the A string and the 4th fret of the D string. It’s a great example of how using dissonance purposely can really add dimension and mood to music.
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Moving onto the chorus you’ll be outlining the same chords, but this time as straight power chords which are broken up with small half-step bends. By bending those notes sharp you are actually leaving the key of the song (A minor) which is another example of melodic dissonance.
Nirvana’s ability to move out of the key into what we call ‘non-diatonic harmony’ is an essential part of what gives their riffs this angular quality to them. Give it a try next time you are writing your own riffs. You might be surprised with what you can come up with!
When Nirvana released “Smells like Teen Spirit” as the lead single (and opening) track from their second album ‘Nevermind’ no one could have anticipated what a cultural phenomenon this would become. Dubbed as the “anthem for apathetic kids”, this was the single that turned Nirvana into a household name.
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This is one of the most popular guitar riffs ever written, and for many new players, it may be the first thing they will ever learn.
To play it, we are simply using 2 power chords on the first and fourth frets of the low E string, followed by 2 more power chords using the same frets on the next set of strings above it.
What gives it that extra bit of musical spice and intrigue is the fact that between the power chords Cobain uses muted picks to give it that percussive element.
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This is achieved by laying multiple fingers over the strings, but not actually fretting them, so they are just resting on the string very lightly. It’s important to use more than one finger to mute otherwise you can get what’s called “natural harmonics” ringing out.
When you strike the string with your fingers simply laying on the strings you get a percussive ‘chik’ sound where there is no audible note or tone being produced, just the nice percussive sound of the pick hitting the strings.
There’s an easy guitar solo in this song too, sometimes it can be hard to get the same amount of sustain that an electric guitar has which makes it not translate to the acoustic quite as well. But if you play cleanly and pick pretty hard it still works just fine!
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The song is played in F minor using the 4 chords: F, Bb, Ab, and Db, all of which are played using the regular power chord shape but with that extra octave added on the top, which makes the guitars sound richer and fuller.
Another track that’s from Nirvana’s second album “Nevermind”. In Bloom was never physically released as a single in the US, but due to its award-winning accompanying music video from American director Kevin Kerslake it still went on to be one of the best-known Nirvana songs and a fan favorite.
Although this song primarily relies on the simple power chord shape throughout, it translates exceptionally well to the acoustic as they often add the higher octave of both the root note and fifth, almost turning the chords into straight bar chords.
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The song is in the key of Bb major, but Nirvana does a good job at subverting that overly major tonality by using the VII chord or the Diminished seventh. Although they play it as a straight power chord which doesn’t give it that distinct diminished sound, the fact that it’s 1 semitone below the root note gives it just enough of that edge to give it that quintessential Nirvana flair.
The solo here is nice and slow and shouldn’t pose too much of a challenge regardless of your skill level. The main thing to watch out for is just how playful they get with the pitch of the bends. They like to mix up half and whole step bends to give it that slightly atonal quality which can be a challenge to match on the acoustic guitar if your strings are too tight.
Lithium is the third single from Nevermind, and once again featured an accompanying music video from Kevin Kerslake which is a compilation of live performance footage.
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So the first thing to do in order to play this song is to tune every string down by 2 semitones each, so you’ll have the same intervallic relationship between each string, only it’ll all be 2 notes lower.
The song opens with what can be described as ‘sequenced arpeggios’, so rather than just ascending up the chord or descending in a linear fashion, instead, we have broken-up sequences that take the core chord progression, but the order in which you play the notes are jumbled around or ‘sequenced’. This is a fantastic technique in order to use arpeggiations in a more interesting and engaging way.
Rhythmically you will also notice that on the verse many of the stronger downbeats are left silent, for example on the first bar the 1 and 2 do not have notes, and on the second bar beat, 2 also doesn’t have a note.
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This idea of stressing the &’s and off beats adds a lot of rhythmic intrigue. And it offers a unique challenge to newer players who are very used to playing more straightforward ‘on-the-beat-’ music.
Then for the chorus, things get even easier as we are just playing some simple power chords. Where the real ‘Nirvana’ element comes from is the fact that it jumps out of key to create some interesting and unexpected chord changes. A key part of their style!
While not released as a main promotional single for Nevermind, the track is still a ton of fun to play and only uses 3 chords so you can go a little nuts with it.
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You can see a fantastic performance of this track in 1991 on The Jonathan Ross Show, where they were originally scheduled to play Lithium, but Kurt surprised everyone by unexpectedly playing this song instead.
You’ll be in the key of A minor for the majority of the song outlining the chords A, F, and D. Which are played as the typical power chord shape with the added octave Nirvana often likes to use.
The main thing to note about this song is the speed, at 196 bpm with straight alternate strummed chords it will give your arm a nice workout! One of the key points here to get this sounding tight is to use the bottom flesh of your left hand’s fingers to lightly touch the top 3 strings of the guitar. This way when you strum, as your pick inevitably hits that 4th and 5th string no matter how good you are, as long as your fingers are choking those strings it doesn’t matter and you’ll only hear the strings you want ringing out.
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In addition to that, there’s a little bit of palm muting on the refrain before
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