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Van Halen

65 guitar songs · Tabs, Lessons & Tone Guide Hard Rock

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Eruption - Guitar Tab Guitar Tab

Eruption - Guitar Tab

YouTube Stats: 5.2M · 90K

Mr. Tabs Guitar Tab
Panama - Guitar Tab Guitar Tab

Panama - Guitar Tab

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Mr. Tabs Guitar Tab
Eruption Pt. 1 - Guitar Lesson Guitar Lesson

Eruption Pt. 1 - Guitar Lesson

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GuitarLessons365SongLessons Guitar Lesson
Eruption - Guitar Lesson Guitar Lesson

Eruption - Guitar Lesson

YouTube Stats: 1.3M · 27K

GuitarLessons365SongLessons Guitar Lesson

Band Overview

History and Guitar Legacy

Van Halen emerged from Pasadena, California in 1978 and permanently transformed electric guitar. Led by Edward Van Halen's superhuman talent, the band fused Hard Rock with pop hooks and party energy. Eddie didn't just play guitar, he reinvented it. His innovations in two-handed tapping, harmonic cascades, tremolo bar dive-bombs, and self-built tone made him the most influential rock guitarist of the late 20th century, comparable only to Jimi Hendrix.

Playing Style and Techniques

Edward Van Halen handled every rhythm and lead part with equal ferocity throughout the band's career. His criminally underrated rhythm work features percussive, syncopated chord patterns with precise palm-muting and open-string rakes on tracks like 'Unchained' and 'Panama.' His lead playing combined blazing speed with melodic sensibility and unpredictable creativity. He wielded the floating Floyd Rose tremolo as an expressive tool, bending notes into singing, crying textures that defined an entire era of rock music.

Why Guitarists Study Van Halen

If you play electric guitar and haven't studied Eddie, you're missing a foundational chapter of the instrument's history. Van Halen's catalog serves as a complete guitar curriculum teaching essential rock fundamentals through advanced techniques. Every guitarist owes it to themselves to study the band's material, as it covers the full spectrum of modern electric guitar playing from basic rhythm concepts to the most demanding technical exercises ever recorded.

Difficulty and Learning Path

Van Halen material spans a wide difficulty range perfect for progressive learning. Intermediate players can start with 'Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love' and 'Runnin' With the Devil,' which teach power chords, arpeggiated patterns, and tight palm-muting. Advanced players tackle 'Eruption' and 'Mean Street,' among rock's most technically demanding pieces, requiring mastery of two-handed tapping, right-hand harmonics, tremolo bar control, and explosive legato runs.

What Makes Van Halen Essential for Guitar Players

  • Eddie Van Halen popularized two-handed tapping on electric guitar, turning it from a novelty into a core lead technique. 'Eruption' is the definitive showcase, rapid hammer-ons and pull-offs on the fretboard with the right hand tapping notes to create fluid, cascading runs at impossible speeds.
  • His rhythm playing is a masterclass in percussive attack and dynamics. On 'Unchained,' Eddie uses a technique where he lightly mutes the strings and rakes across them between chord stabs, creating a chunky, funky groove that sits perfectly in the mix. Learning this teaches you how rhythm guitar can be as flashy as any solo.
  • Eddie's tremolo bar work goes far beyond simple dive-bombs. On 'Mean Street' he uses right-hand tapping on open strings combined with tremolo bar manipulation to produce harmonic squeals and pitch-bending effects that sound almost electronic. It's a technique unique to his playing that requires a properly set-up floating bridge.
  • Van Halen songs are excellent for developing hybrid picking and dynamic control. 'Dance the Night Away' and 'Drop Dead Legs' feature clean and semi-clean passages where note articulation and touch matter more than gain, proving Eddie wasn't just a shredder but a deeply musical player.
  • Eddie's use of natural and artificial harmonics as a compositional tool, not just ornamentation, is on full display in 'Spanish Fly,' an acoustic piece that demands pinpoint accuracy with both hands. It's a reminder that great technique transcends distortion and effects.

Did You Know?

Eddie Van Halen built his iconic 'Frankenstrat' guitar from spare parts, a Charvel body, a Fender neck, and a single Gibson PAF humbucker mounted directly into the body. He painted it himself with Schwinn bicycle paint, creating the legendary black-and-white (later red) striped design to disguise the cheap body.

The 'brown sound', Eddie's warm, saturated, harmonically rich overdrive tone, was partially achieved by running a variac (a voltage regulator) into his Marshall heads, reducing the voltage to get power-tube saturation at manageable volumes. This technique was considered radical at the time.

Eddie recorded 'Eruption' in a single take that was originally just a warm-up. Producer Ted Templeman hit record without telling him, and the result became the most iconic guitar solo in rock history.

On 'Jump,' Eddie played the keyboard riff on an Oberheim OB-Xa synthesizer, which some band members initially resisted. The guitar work on that track is often overlooked, but the rhythm parts and the solo are vintage Eddie, tight, energetic, and full of his signature tremolo bar squeals.

Eddie invented a guitar pickup called the Tone Hammer (later refined into the EVH Frankenstein humbucker) because he was never satisfied with off-the-shelf pickups. He wanted higher output without sacrificing the clarity needed for tapping articulation.

For 'Mean Street,' Eddie tuned his low E string down and slapped the strings with his right hand near the neck, a technique borrowed from bass guitar. The intro sounds like nothing else in rock and remains one of the most difficult passages to replicate accurately.

Eddie used to dip his guitar picks in super glue and then sand them to create a custom grip texture. Small details like this reveal how obsessively he pursued control over his instrument at every level.

Essential Albums for Guitarists

Van Halen 1978

The debut album is ground zero for modern rock guitar. 'Eruption' will teach you two-handed tapping from the source, 'Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love' is a perfect intermediate rhythm workout with its arpeggiated minor chord riff, and 'Runnin' With the Devil' introduces you to Eddie's power chord voicings and open-string drones. Every track is a guitar lesson.

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Women and Children First album cover
Women and Children First 1980

This album showcases Eddie's rhythm guitar chops at their most creative and aggressive. 'Unchained' (actually from Fair Warning, but often grouped with this era), tracks like 'And the Cradle Will Rock' feature distorted keyboard-like tones run through guitar amps, while 'Everybody Wants Some!!' is a rhythm masterclass in syncopated palm-muting and open-string rakes.

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Fair Warning album cover
Fair Warning 1981

The darkest and most guitar-driven Van Halen album. 'Unchained' is essential for learning percussive rhythm technique and features one of Eddie's greatest solos. 'Mean Street' opens with that legendary right-hand tapping/slapping intro and builds into a heavy groove that tests your timing and dynamics. This is the album for guitarists who want to go beyond the hits.

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1984 album cover
1984 1984

Despite the synth-heavy production, the guitar work here is phenomenal. 'Panama' is a clinic in driving rock rhythm guitar, tight downpicking, palm-muted chugs, and a solo full of tremolo bar drama. 'Drop Dead Legs' features beautiful clean arpeggios and a blues-influenced solo. 'Hot for Teacher' has one of the most technically demanding guitar intros in rock.

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5150 album cover
5150 1986

The first Sammy Hagar-era album showed Eddie evolving his tone and technique. The title track '5150' features aggressive rhythm work and a melodic solo approach, while 'Best of Both Worlds' combines chunky power chord riffs with Eddie's signature fills and tapping. Great for learning how Eddie adapted his style to a more melodic vocal context without losing any firepower.

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Tone & Gear

Guitar

Eddie Van Halen's most iconic guitar is the 'Frankenstrat', a Superstrat-style instrument he assembled from a Charvel/Boogie Bodies ash body and a Fender maple neck, loaded with a single humbucker in the bridge and a Floyd Rose double-locking tremolo. He later partnered with Ernie Ball Music Man (the EVH model, 1991–1995), then Peavey (the Wolfgang, 1996–2004), and finally launched the EVH brand with Fender, producing the EVH Wolfgang and Striped Series guitars. The common thread across all his guitars: a single bridge humbucker, volume knob, Floyd Rose tremolo, and a flat 12–16 inch radius fretboard for easy bending and tapping.

Amp

Eddie's 'brown sound' originated from a 1968 Marshall Plexi 100-watt Super Lead head, often run through a variac to lower the voltage to around 90 volts, pushing the power tubes into sweet, spongy saturation at lower volumes. He later used modified Marshalls, Soldano SLO-100 heads, and Peavey 5150 amps (which he co-designed). The EVH 5150 III is the modern continuation, a three-channel, 100-watt tube amp with EL34 power tubes that covers clean sparkle to crushing high-gain. Eddie typically ran cabinets loaded with Celestion G12M Greenback or Vintage 30 speakers.

Pickups

Eddie famously used a Gibson PAF humbucker (pulled from a Gibson ES-335) in the bridge of his original Frankenstrat, a relatively low-output pickup that maintained clarity during tapping and legato runs even under heavy gain. He later worked with Seymour Duncan and DiMarzio before developing his own EVH Frankenstein humbucker, which is wound to around 14k ohms, hotter than a vintage PAF but voiced to retain articulation and dynamic response rather than just adding compression. The pickup's Alnico 2 magnet gives it a slightly softer attack with rich harmonics.

Effects & Chain

Eddie's effects approach was relatively minimal but strategic. His most signature effect was the MXR Phase 90 (the script-logo version), used prominently on 'Eruption,' 'Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love,' and 'Atomic Punk' for that swirling, vocal-like sweep. He also used an MXR Flanger (particularly on 'Unchained'), a Cry Baby wah for select solos, and a simple chorus or echo unit for ambience. He ran an Echoplex tape delay early in his career, which also acted as a preamp boost coloring his tone before hitting the Marshall. The EVH brand now produces the MXR EVH Phase 90 and EVH Flanger as faithful recreations. Notably, Eddie relied far more on amp gain and guitar volume knob manipulation than on distortion pedals.

Recommended Gear

Gibson ES-335
Guitar

Gibson ES-335

Eddie Van Halen pulled a Gibson PAF humbucker from a ES-335 to load his original Frankenstrat, giving him a low-output pickup that maintained clarity during lightning-fast tapping and legato runs despite heavy gain.

Marshall Plexi (1959 Super Lead)
Amp

Marshall Plexi (1959 Super Lead)

Eddie's 1968 Marshall Plexi Super Lead, run through a variac at 90 volts, created his legendary 'brown sound' by pushing power tubes into sweet, spongy saturation at gig volumes, defining his harmonic sustain and responsiveness.

Soldano SLO-100
Amp

Soldano SLO-100

Eddie adopted the Soldano SLO-100 as a tonal alternative to Marshalls, delivering the high-headroom, articulate gain he needed for his finger-tapping technique while maintaining clarity in complex legato passages.

Peavey 5150
Amp

Peavey 5150

Eddie co-designed the Peavey 5150 to capture his signature tone in a modern platform, offering three channels from clean sparkle to crushing high-gain with EL34 power tubes for dynamic responsiveness across his entire playing vocabulary.

Dunlop Cry Baby Wah
Pedal

Dunlop Cry Baby Wah

Eddie employed the Dunlop Cry Baby wah strategically on select solos, using it to add vocal-like expression and sweep to his lead lines without relying heavily on effect-driven tones.

MXR Phase 90
Pedal

MXR Phase 90

Eddie's MXR Phase 90 script-logo version created his signature swirling, vocal sweep on 'Eruption' and 'Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love,' becoming one of rock's most identifiable effect tones through minimal, tasteful use.

How to Practice Van Halen on GuitarZone

Every Van Halen song page on GuitarZone includes a built-in Practice Toolbar. No app to download, no account needed. Open any song, then use the toolbar to slow the video to 0.5× speed, set an A/B loop around the exact riff you're working on, and jump between song sections instantly.

The toolbar appears automatically on every guitar tab, lesson, and cover page. Pick a song below, hit play, and start practicing at your own pace.

Practice Eruption - Guitar TabPractice Panama - Guitar TabPractice Eruption Pt. 1 - Guitar Lesson