Don't Cry - How to Play Don't Cry by Guns N' Roses on Guitar

Hey this is Joe Wiles with the Rock and Roll Conservatory coming at you for HowToPlayAnySong.com. Today Gregory from Ireland asked us to teach Don't Cry by Guns 'N Roses. Hey Gregory thanks for the suggestion. \ \ We're going to do that right now. Don't Cry comes from Guns and Roses third studio release, Use Your Illusion the box set. It was out in 1991 in fact on that double disc set there's two versions of Don't Cry and there's also actually a mysterious third version that was recorded during their Appetite for Destruction studio sessions and it's a little-known fact that Shannon Hoon from Blind Melon recorded backup vocals on the radio release for Don't Cry. Anyway let's take a look. \ \ \b Intro\ \ \ \pard\tx713\tx1434\pardeftab720\ri720 \b0 \cf0 So we're going to take a look at the introduction to \'93Don't Cry.\'94 There's three chords you're going to want to know for the introduction. One is an A minor. It's played with an open A string. Your middle finger on the 2nd fret of the D. Your ring finger on the 2nd fret of the G. Your index finger on the 1st fret of the B, and an open high E. Strummed together from the A string down. \ \ The next one's a D minor. It's your index finger on the 1st fret of the high E. Your ring finger on the 3rd fret of the B. Your middle finger on the 2nd fret of the G, and an open D string. \ \ You're going to strum from the D string down, and then a G major chord. It's your index finger on the 2nd fret of the A. Your middle finger on the 3rd fret of the low E. Your ring finger on the 3rd fret of the B, and your pinky on the 3rd fret of the high E. Your D and G, those are just open strings. We're going to strum all the strings this time. \ \ To get started, we're going to form that A minor. Put your pinky down on the 3rd fret of the low E string. Just to get started, we're going to hit that note. And then we're going to not strum the chords, but pick each note individually. \ \ We'll start with the open A string, and then the D, and then the G, then we'll go to the high E string and work backwards, high E, B, G, so it sounds like this, the first chord. Again.\ \ Then we're going to form that D minor chord here. We're going to hit the open D string twice. Hit the G and the B, high E, and then work backwards. And then we're going to skip down here to the low A string. This set sounds like this. \ \ So both those two chords put together sound like this. \ \ And then we're going to form the G major that we learned before. We're going to strum this. The first four lowest strings.\ \ And then skip to the high E string and work backwards.\ \ And then hit the open A string. We'd have to lift our finger off to do that.\ \ The G sounds like this. Whoops. Sounds like this. Open A. You have to lift your finger off to do that. Those three chords put together sound like this. \ \ And then we use a little turn around riff. Take your middle finger that's on the 3rd fret of the low E string here. Move it to the A string, just one string higher. We'll hit the A string, D and G, and the move your middle finger down to the 2nd fret. \ \ Do the same thing, A, D, G, then use your ring finger to go back to the 3rd fret of the A, then 2nd fret A. And then we're going to start the riff over. The tail end of that riff sounds like this. \ \ So let's put all the chords together, and we're going to go through it twice. At the very end, there's going to be a riff, and we'll cover it when we get there, but this is what it should sound like all put together.\ \ We're going to end the intro by going two, three, four on the low E string. And then move your index finger to the second fret of the D here, and then hit the A and the D. That little last riff sounds like this. So all together it sounds like this. So to speed, that riff sounds like this.\ \pard\tx720\tx1440\tx2160\tx2880\tx3600\tx4320\tx5040\tx5760\tx6480\tx7200\tx7920\tx8640\ql\qnatural\pardirnatural \b \cf0 \ \ Verse\ \ \ \pard\tx713\tx1434\pardeftab720\ri720 \b0 \cf0 So the verse of \'93Don't Cry\'94 is exactly like the introduction, except for one difference. We're going to go through it a couple of times, but at the end of the second verse, and I think the third verse as well, they turn it around a little bit differently. And that's the riff I want to teach you in this section. \ \ That riff is a C major chord. It's the ring finger on the 3rd fret of the A string. Your middle finger on the 2nd fret of the D. Your G will be open. Your B is fretted on the 1st fret, and the high E string is open. Strum from the A string down. \ \ The next chord is a G major chord with a B root. It's the middle finger on the 2nd fret of the A string, open D, open G, and 3rd fret B. Hit those middle four strings. Then also an A minor and then a G that we already know from the intro. \ \ So the application of those is at the very end of the verse. The verse will run like this, and then we'll start that turnaround riff when we get there. And at that point on the second and third verse is where we go, that C major chord. That G major with a B, and then an A minor, and then a G major.\ \ So to speed the verse, it sounds like this \'96 the second and the third verse actually sound like this. In fact the first verse is \'96 the only difference is it doesn't have that ending on it. Anyway here it is to speed.\ \pard\tx560\tx1120\tx1680\tx2240\tx2800\tx3360\tx3920\tx4480\tx5040\tx5600\tx6160\tx6720\ql\qnatural\pardirnatural \cf0 Now the chorus of Don't Cry has like chord. It's kind of a three fingered F, it's not a full bar chord F, if you're familiar with that version. We're going to do the easier one. It's laying the pad of our index finger across the 1st frets of the high two strings, the B and the E.\ \ Use our middle finger on the 2nd fret of the G and our ring finger on the third fret of the D. Strum from the D string down. We already know the G major we'll use and the A minor and I think that covers it. As long as we know this F, we can play the chorus.\ \ So what we're going to do to started it off. We're actually going to play this F but we're going to play a little riff with it. Leave our ring finger on the 3rd fret of the D and \ We're going to hit these three strings, the D, the G and the B and then we're going to hammer on our middle finger to the 2nd fret were it's suppose to be and we're going to kind of pull it off. Here it is again. \ the G. We're going to hit the low strings and then answer with the high strings and then we're going to go to the A minor. Then we're going to hit the open B but hammer on our index finger to the 1st fret. Like this, high E. So those three chords put together would sound like this, again. \ \ Something like that, as long as you're following basically hitting the low strings on the first string F and we're going to pick through that. Then a G. and then that A minor again. \ \ This is where a cool riff comes in that I want to point out. Let's put our pinky on the 3rd fret of the B, slide up to the 5, bring it back down to the 3rd and then pull off to that 1st fret. We'll do that again, the A minor, it sounds like this. \ \ So let's play the second F-G-A minor sequence, sounds like this. For the third set we'll hit that F again and then we're going to do a turnaround that's similar to the one we did it in the verse. It's that C major chord. \ your middle finger to the 2nd fret of the A string, open D, open G, first fret B, and \ Then hit the A minor, hit the same strings here's the whole chorus put together, see if we can do it. }