Hitchin' A Ride - Electric Guitar Lessonby Green Day

Hitchin' A Ride is a great single off of Green Day's 1997 album Nimrod. This one's pretty cool because it uses a lot of dead notes which creates a rhythmic effect. Rather than having space in between the notes, you fill it in with a percussive hit which makes for an interesting sound. Something that I find interesting to think about is how the guitar is by nature a percussive instrument, since you're hitting the strings in order to create a pitch, but on the dead notes they take a more rhythmic quality which allows the guitar to play multiple roles. There's a lot of octaves in this song that have the root on the 2nd and 4th string and move all over the neck, which can be tricky because you have to mute the string in between so you don't end up with an extra note. When you bend the octaves, you really have to make sure that your thumb is tightly wrapped around the back of the neck to make sure you have the proper leverage to get those notes moving right.