Dire Straits - Sultans Of Swing Pt.1 - Intro & Verse One - Guitar Lesson

About Sultans Of Swing Pt.1 - Intro & Verse One

Few guitar intros are as immediately recognisable as the fingerpicked opening of "Sultans of Swing," and learning it properly means getting comfortable with Mark Knopfler's bare-finger picking style. Knopfler plays without a plectrum, using his thumb and fingers to pluck individual strings, which gives each note a rounder, more vocal quality than a pick would produce. The intro and first verse sit in D minor, so the shapes themselves are not wildly complex, but replicating the feel requires relaxed right-hand control and careful attention to which fingers pluck which strings. The challenge is not speed but articulation: every note needs to speak cleanly and with the right amount of attack. Use the Practice Toolbar to loop the intro at a reduced speed so you can match your picking-hand movement to Knopfler's phrase by phrase. Dire Straits built their whole sound around this kind of understated, expressive guitar work, and this song is one of the best places to start learning it.

• Mark Knopfler plays this song fingerstyle without a pick, so developing a clean bare-finger technique on your picking hand is the main challenge.
• The song is in D minor, and the intro uses open-position chord shapes and single-note lines that reward slow, deliberate practice before building speed.
• Matching Knopfler's tone means letting each plucked note ring fully, so right-hand finger placement and nail length can noticeably affect your results.