Muse - Knights Of Cydonia - Guitar Tab

About Knights Of Cydonia

Few rock songs pack as much into one track as "Knights of Cydonia" by Muse, and that density is exactly what makes it a serious guitar workout. The song opens with a clean, reverb-soaked spaghetti-western guitar figure that demands careful right-hand control to keep the articulation crisp at 137 BPM. That intro gives way to one of the most recognisable riff sequences in Alternative Rock, built around E minor power chords driven hard with palm muting. The real challenge is the extended riff section in the body of the song, where the rhythm shifts and the picking pattern needs to stay locked and consistent under real tempo pressure. Use the Practice Toolbar to loop that central riff slowed down until your pick attack and muting are completely even, then gradually bring it back up to speed. The outro gallop is deceptively physical, so pacing yourself through a full run-through is worth building up to.

• The song opens with a clean, reverb-heavy guitar melody in E minor that draws on spaghetti-western phrasing and requires careful pick articulation.
• At 137 BPM in E Standard tuning, the main riff relies on tight palm-muted power chords, making consistent right-hand muting the key technique to develop.
• The outro features a driving gallop rhythm that is physically demanding to sustain at full tempo, so looping it slowed down is the recommended way to build stamina.