How to Play AC/DC's Thunderstruck

Hey this is Jimmy Brown and I’m going to show you how to play ACDC’s Thunder Struck, the hit song from the 1991 album, the Razor’s Edge. First up is the song’s instantly recognized intro played by Angus Young. Here’s the same part played slowly.
So what Angus is basically doing here is he’s playing it snotty against an open B string, pedal tone. So he starts out on the 16th note, blast 16th note before the down beat. First note is an up stroke and then from that point on, it’s down-up-down-up. So it’s up-down-up-down-up-down-up-down-up.
The next part is chord with A in our transcription. This is a little trickier because you have to travel up and down the string. Again, if you think of it as a melody within a melody, you think of it as this. And then you're just adding an open B note in between each of those spreaded notes. So you want to practice this slowly and steadily. It really helps to tap your foot and it really helps to use a metronome because on recording you’ll notice there’s a drumbeat going and I find it that helps tremendously. If you just to try and play it acapella without any rhythm without tapping your foot or anybody, anything helping you, it’s easy for that riff to get away from you until you lose your picking your left-right hand coordination. So, practice this slowly and gradually put a speed. You can start like this.


Transcription by: Scribe4you Transcription Services