Cinderella - Shake Me - Guitar Lesson

Night Songs

1986 3:42

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About Shake Me

From the opening of "Shake Me," the guitar work demands your attention right away. The song sits in E minor at 120 BPM in standard tuning, which makes it very approachable for an intermediate player, but the groove has a behind-the-beat swagger that trips up anyone who rushes it. The main riff leans on power chords with a bluesy edge, so getting the right amount of palm muting versus open ring is what separates a flat rendition from one that actually feels alive. Cinderella built their early sound on this kind of hard rock grit, tight riffing with a raw, street-level energy rather than clinical precision. The lead sections call for confident pentatonic phrasing with some string bending, and the bends need to land in tune or the whole thing falls apart. Use the Practice Toolbar to loop those lead passages slowed down until each bend hits the right pitch cleanly before you bring it back up to full tempo.

• The song is in E minor with standard tuning, meaning you can focus entirely on feel and technique without any retuning required.
• Palm muting control on the main riff is the key challenge: too much muting kills the swagger, too little makes it sound sloppy.
• The lead guitar sections rely on pentatonic bending, so practise string bends in isolation until they land perfectly in tune.