The Beatles - I Am The Walrus - Guitar Lesson

Love

2006 4:28

Listen on Spotify

About I Am The Walrus

Few Beatles tracks demand as much from a rhythm guitarist as "I Am The Walrus." The foundation is a churning, repetitive A-based riff built around a two-note figure that locks tightly with the drums, and keeping that pulse steady at 128 BPM without it feeling mechanical is the real challenge. The song sits in A major in E Standard tuning, but the chord movement is anything but straightforward, pulling through unexpected changes that require clean left-hand shifts at pace. On top of that, the strumming pattern needs a slightly behind-the-beat, heavy feel to capture the lumbering quality of the original. Use the Practice Toolbar to loop those chord transitions slowed down until the shifts are automatic before bringing the tempo back up. The Beatles wrote this as a deliberately absurdist piece, and matching that heavy, lurching groove is what makes it convincing on guitar. Fans of Progressive Rock will appreciate how the arrangement layers tension across a deceptively simple rhythmic frame.

• The song's guitar part centres on a repeated two-note riff in A major that must lock firmly with the rhythm section to hold the groove together.
• At 128 BPM in E Standard tuning, the chord changes arrive quickly enough that left-hand position shifts need to be well-drilled before playing up to speed.
• Getting the right tone means favouring a slightly overdriven, midrange-heavy sound to match the dense, layered texture of the original recording.