Blue Oyster Cult - Don't Fear the Reaper - Guitar Tab

Agents Of Fortune

1976 5:08

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About Don't Fear the Reaper

Few rock songs from 1976 hinge so completely on a single guitar figure as this one. The opening arpeggiated riff, written and performed by Blue Oyster Cult's Buck Dharma, is deceptively simple on the page but tricky to execute cleanly at tempo. It moves through a repeating fingerpicked or hybrid-picked pattern in A minor that needs an even, relaxed touch: rushing it even slightly collapses the hypnotic feel the song depends on. At 120 BPM in E Standard tuning, the tempo is comfortable, but keeping every note of that circular arpeggio perfectly even is where most players stall. Use the Practice Toolbar to loop that intro figure slowed down until the picking hand is completely automatic before you bring it back up to speed. The lead work later in the track sits in A minor as well, leaning on melodic phrasing rather than flashy technique, which makes it a rewarding study in saying more with fewer notes. Tone-wise, a clean or lightly overdriven sound with a touch of Hard Rock grit will get you closest to Dharma's recorded sound.

• The signature intro riff is a repeating arpeggio pattern in A minor that rewards hybrid picking or fingerpicking for cleaner note separation.
• Running in E Standard tuning at 120 BPM, the song sits at a moderate tempo where rhythmic evenness matters more than speed.
• Buck Dharma's lead guitar tone is clean to lightly overdriven, so a compressed, mid-forward sound suits this song better than heavy distortion.