Marilyn Manson - The Beautiful People - Guitar Lesson

About The Beautiful People

Drop D tuning is the whole engine of "The Beautiful People." That lowered sixth string puts the grinding, repetitive main riff right under your first finger, and the heaviness of the song lives entirely in how locked-in and percussive you keep that low D. The riff itself is not technically complex, but it demands precision: every note needs to land with the same aggressive, clipped attack, so right-hand muting discipline is what separates a tight performance from a sloppy one. At 128 BPM in E minor, the tempo is steady enough to control, but the relentlessness of the repetition means any drift in your picking hand becomes obvious fast. Use the Practice Toolbar to loop the opening riff slowed down until the muting and the rhythmic feel are completely automatic before you bring it back to full speed. Marilyn Manson built this track as a blunt, mechanical statement, and the guitar playing should feel exactly that way. If you want more context for the style, the Industrial Metal genre page has related songs worth exploring alongside this one.

• The main riff sits in Drop D tuning, letting you bar power chords on the lowest two strings with a single finger for fast, aggressive chord changes.
• Right-hand palm muting is critical throughout: the riff's impact comes from tight, percussive note separation rather than any complex fretting technique.
• At 128 BPM the tempo is manageable, but looping the riff slowed down will help you lock in the consistent picking attack the song requires.