A Perfect Circle - The Outsider - Guitar Tab

About The Outsider

Drop D tuning does a lot of the work in "The Outsider," giving the low open sixth string a heavy, resonant drop that underpins the song's brooding E minor feel. The riff writing from A Perfect Circle leans on that dropped root note heavily, so getting the fret-hand muting clean between chord stabs is where most players need to focus early on. At 90 BPM the tempo is not fast, but the groove demands tight rhythmic control rather than speed. The challenge is keeping the dynamics honest: the song shifts between restrained, almost clean passages and thick, crunching power chord sections, and those transitions need to feel deliberate. Use the Practice Toolbar to loop the heavier riff sections slowed down until your pick attack is consistent across both the muted and open hits. Alternative Metal rhythm work like this is a great place to build right-hand precision that carries into a lot of other material.

• Drop D tuning lets you play the low E minor root as a one-finger power chord, which is central to the song's riff approach.
• The song's main difficulty is controlling pick-hand dynamics cleanly across the quiet and heavy sections, not raw speed or complexity.
• Practise muting the dropped D string between chord hits to keep the riff punchy rather than letting notes blur together.