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The Who - Behind Blue Eyes - Guitar Lesson

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Key E minor
The Who - Behind Blue Eyes guitar lesson video
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Classic Rock

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The Who Hard Rock E minor
Capo Advisor 0 E minor · Original key

About Behind Blue Eyes

Few songs split so cleanly between two worlds: "Behind Blue Eyes" opens with a delicate fingerpicked section in E minor, then erupts into a full-band Hard Rock drive that demands a completely different right-hand attack. At 76 BPM, the quiet intro feels unhurried, but that slowness is deceptive. Getting the arpeggiated chords to ring cleanly without muting adjacent strings takes real left-hand control, especially through the Bm and Esus transitions. When the song shifts gears, your strumming needs to deliver genuine aggression without rushing the tempo. Use the Practice Toolbar to loop the fingerpicked intro slowed down until each note sustains fully before you move to the next chord. The Who were built around Pete Townshend's rhythm playing, and this song is a study in how he could move from vulnerability to force within a single track. Both modes are worth learning separately before you connect them.

  • The song has two distinct guitar modes: a fingerpicked minor-key intro and a forceful strummed hard-rock section, each requiring a different right-hand technique.
  • Playing in E minor at 76 BPM, the slow tempo exposes any muted notes or sloppy chord transitions in the arpeggiated opening.
  • Focus practice on the dynamic shift between the soft verse and the loud chorus, as controlling that volume contrast cleanly is the main challenge.

How to Play Behind Blue Eyes

Tuning: E Standard · Key: E minor · Tempo: 76 BPM

Loop each section and focus on clean, even timing rather than speed, with the metronome at 76 BPM.

Fender Stratocaster
Guitar

Fender Stratocaster

Townshend switched to Fender Stratocasters from the mid-1970s onward, using their stock single-coil pickups for clarity and chimey top-end that cut through massive stadium volumes when paired with his Hiwatt amps. The Strat's responsiveness to his dynamic, windmill attack made it ideal for The Who's power chord precision.

Gibson Les Paul Standard
Guitar

Gibson Les Paul Standard

While Townshend primarily used Les Paul Deluxes with mini-humbuckers, the Standard's full humbuckers would deliver a tighter, more compressed midrange that contrasts with his preferred P-90 aggression. A Standard represents a warmer, less cutting variation of his classic mod-era tone.

Gibson Les Paul Custom
Guitar

Gibson Les Paul Custom

The Les Paul Custom shares the Deluxe's mini-humbucker character that Townshend favored for a focused midrange, though its premium construction would offer slightly more sustain than his typical gigging instruments. Townshend valued stock electronics and destructive live performance over luxury features.

Marshall JTM45
Amp

Marshall JTM45

Townshend famously pushed Marshall JTM45s to their limits in the late 1960s, driving them into aggressive overdrive that influenced Marshall's louder amp designs. His volume demands and hard-hit playing style directly contributed to Marshall developing more powerful heads to match his revolutionary stage presence.

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