Nirvana - Where Did You Sleep Last Night - Guitar Lesson

MTV Unplugged In New York (Live Acoustic)

1994 5:06

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About Where Did You Sleep Last Night

Few performances capture raw tension quite like Nirvana's take on this old folk standard from their 1994 MTV Unplugged set. The song is in Open G tuning, which shifts your whole relationship with the fretboard, so if you normally play in standard, budget some time just getting comfortable with the chord shapes before worrying about anything else. The key of E minor gives the progression a genuinely dark, unresolved feel, and matching that mood with your right hand is half the battle. At 170 BPM the strumming pattern moves faster than the sparse arrangement might suggest, and keeping it controlled rather than frantic is where most players slip up. The climactic outro, where the intensity builds hard, is worth isolating in the Practice Toolbar slowed down so you can lock in the picking attack and string muting before bringing it back to tempo. This is Alternative Rock built on a folk skeleton, and treating it with that stripped-back honesty is the key to making it land.

• The song is played in Open G tuning, meaning all six strings need to be retuned before you start, and chord voicings differ significantly from standard tuning.
• Controlled right-hand dynamics are critical here: the arrangement demands quiet, restrained picking in the verses before building to a raw, aggressive strum in the outro.
• Muting unwanted open strings is the main technical hurdle in Open G, so practise clean chord transitions slowly before attempting the full 170 BPM pace.