Foo Fighters - Waiting On A War - Guitar Lesson

Medicine At Midnight

2021 4:14

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About Waiting On A War

From the 2021 album Medicine At Midnight, "Waiting On A War" sits on the more melodic, open side of Foo Fighters' catalog, and that character shapes everything about how you approach it on guitar. Running at 120 BPM in E major with standard tuning, the song is accessible without being trivial: the chord work is clean and strummed with real dynamic intention, asking you to control the swell from quiet to loud rather than just hammering through the changes. The Alternative Rock feel here leans on restraint, so right-hand dynamics and pick attack matter as much as knowing the chords. Pay close attention to the pre-chorus build, where the strumming pattern tightens before the chorus opens up. If the timing of that transition feels slippery, use the Practice Toolbar to loop it slowed down until the shift from held chords to the driving strum clicks naturally. The song rewards a guitarist who listens to the arrangement rather than just playing through it.

• Played in E Standard tuning and E major, the song uses open chord voicings that reward clean fretting and careful left-hand muting to keep the sound open.
• The dynamic contrast between the restrained verse strumming and the fuller chorus strum pattern is the main technical challenge worth isolating in practice.
• At 120 BPM the tempo is comfortable, but maintaining consistent pick attack across the quiet-to-loud transitions takes deliberate attention to right-hand control.