How to Play Ain’t Talkin Bout Love By Van Halen

February 2, 2008 at 6:48 pm · Filed under Music

How to play Ain’t Talking About Love by Van Halen - A special version !
This is a more complicated version which not only sounds great by will provide a good technique building exercise. We’ve got the guitar tab and the track to listen to

Most guitarists look to make things as easy as possible, I have always looked for the more difficult route.
Reasons are two-fold, firstly when you revert to the ‘easy version’ it really does seem very easy and you can concentrate on emphasis and expression rather than simple recital. Secondly, really gives your technique a workout - makes the fingers work !

The founder of shred guitar is the mighty Eddie Van Halen and this is one of his finest licks, taken from their stunning first album which reshaped rock guitar playing. It is traditionally played over an open A minor chord shape. My version however is arpeggio based. It provides a great exercise in string skipping and picking accuracy, I also prefer it because, unlike the usual version, it does not use open strings which with a lot of distortion can sound messy. It also looks a lot cooler as well
You can listen to the original studio version at the bottom of the page

Guitar Tablature for the Intro Riff

E——————————————————————————————-
B————————————–5–6——————8–5————————–
G——————-5————————–5———————5———————
D————————–7————————7—————————————
A——–7———————————————————————————-
E-5—————————————————————————–8—7——-

Intro chords and lick

A minor barre chord the G bar chord - finish of with the below

E——————————————————————————————-
B———————————————————————————
G—————————————————————————————
D—————————————————————————————–
A——————————————————————————————
E—5—–8——7————————————————————————–

Palm muting is key to keeping this clean, let the final 2 notes go, plenty of vibrato and squeal the notes with pinched harmonics

How to get the Sound
Plenty of distortion ! Humbucker pickup in the bridge position. The swirling effect you hear is a flanger. If you’ve got one fine, if not don’t worry it sounds great without one. If you’ve not got a lot of distortion - why not ? do something about that