10 INCREDIBLE Guitar Secrets In Rock Songs You Totally Missed

In the early days of the British Invasion, the Rolling Stones were the real deal. While other bands were doing their best to take cues from the American blues tradition, these lads from the streets of London seemed like seasoned veterans drenched in the backwater sounds of the American South. As the band went on though, Keith Richards found many different ways to express his bluesy soul through his instrument.

Though most of the Stones' early material is usually centered around a series of riffs comprised of a couple notes, much of the band's later material include riffs based around a chord. It doesn't usually make sense when played on a regular guitar, but Keef's approach doesn't even need 6 strings. Starting in the late 60's, Richards started to employ his trademark open-G tuning, which involved tuning the entire guitar to the tune of a major chord and removing the bottom string entirely.

At first, it seems like you need to learn an entirely new sonic vocabulary, but Keef's attempts at studying this new sound has led to countless Stones classics from "Start Me Up" to "Brown Sugar." This new approach may feel a bit alien to traditional players, but in Richards' own words, all you need is "5 strings, 2 chord shapes, and 1 ass*ole."