Europe - Carrie - Guitar Solo Tab

About Carrie

Few power ballads from the late 1980s sit as comfortably under the fingers as "Carrie," yet getting it to feel right takes more care than the simple chord shapes suggest. The song lives in E Standard tuning at 120 BPM, a moderate tempo that gives you room to breathe but also exposes any sloppiness in your chord transitions and pick attack. The opening clean arpeggio figure is the part most players want to nail first: keep your fretting hand relaxed and let each note ring cleanly rather than rushing to the next shape. The lead guitar work calls for smooth, lyrical bending and vibrato, the kind of phrasing that Europe made central to their Glam Metal sound. If the arpeggio intro trips you up, set the Practice Toolbar to loop it slowed down until the right-hand picking pattern becomes automatic. Once the feel is locked in at a reduced speed, bringing it back up to 120 BPM should feel natural rather than forced.

• The intro features a clean picked arpeggio pattern in E Standard tuning that rewards a light touch and precise right-hand finger or pick control.
• Smooth vibrato and controlled string bending are essential for the lead guitar melody, so practice sustaining bends in tune before playing up to tempo.
• At 120 BPM the song sits at a moderate pace, making it a good candidate for slowing down with the Practice Toolbar to isolate the chord-to-arpeggio transitions.