Here's how to play Lithium by Nirvana on electric guitar. This tutorial covers how to play all sections on electric guitar, plus advice on how to get the tone with either distortion and chorus pedals, or with a channel switching amp.
The riffs on the clean and heavy sound use basically the same chords. So, once you learn the heavy riff, then the picking, you can play most of this song!
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Amp settings and channel switching
To change between the clean and heavy tone, you ideally need an overdrive pedal (Kurt often used the Boss DS1, which is still an affordable and awesome choice of distortion pedal!). Use that between your guitar and amp on any clean amp sound and that will do the job nicely. Use a chords during the verses if you want to get even closer to that original tone.
Alternately, you can (as I did here) use a channel switching amp. This is like having two amps in one, which ideally can be changed between by a channel switching pedal. Changing channels by pressing a button on the amp (as many budget amps are limited to) is not ideal as you have to stop playing to press the button. So keep all this in mind to get the most out of the gear you currently have, but also to save you buying twice!
Need more help? Just get in touch via the helpdesk or join the discord community by signing up for an Andy Guitar membership to hear how other members get this kind of amp tone with various different amps, pedals and gear!
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