Guitar Tabs: How to play the Interstellar soundtrack (Fingerstyle guitar version)
Disclaimer: For the first time I’m on the other side of music education — producing tabs. There certainly will be some discrepancies; I apologise in advance. This fingerstyle-guitar arrangement is heavily inspired by Eddie Van Der Meer’s version. Check out his amazing cover here.
Skill required: Medium. Tuning: E G B G B D# (String 6 -> String 1)
Okay, you’re here because you saw my version of S.T.A.Y (the Interstellar soundtrack) and now you want to learn how to play it. If you haven’t seen it yet, just hit play below.
Noticed how the strings moved in slow-motion? Read on how to record it that way here.
Well then, let’s get right into it! Assuming you are familiar with several fingerpicking patterns, this piece should be a breeze. It took me only around 30–45 minutes to pick it up. The fretting is basically a sequence of 3 EASY chords cycled throughout. Chord positions are shown below (don’t ask me what chords they are):
To make things easier, let’s split the piece into 5 parts: the intro, body1, easy part, body2 and the outro. IMO you should start with the easy part as it will familiarise you with the structure.
INTRO
The intro starts by picking the open 1st and the open 2nd string alternatively. Click here to see how it goes.
This goes on for around 2 bars (i’m saying around because i’m not sure, you can figure it out from the video). After which comes a simple melody line that you play over this alternative picking pattern.
BODY1
This part starts here. From this point on till the end of the piece, the fretting will be cycles of the chords mentioned above.
Next, keeping the same fretting, add open 1st string notes as shown below:
EASY PART
This part starts here. Here all you do is play an arpeggio-sort-of-thing (don’t play the three notes at once, rather roll your fingers to play them one after the other, refer video) for the chord positionings with open 1st string notes snuck in between.
Check out the other stuff I come up with: www.nowshoing.com
BODY2
If you conquer this, you’ve conquered it all. Undoubtedly the most complex part in a not so complex tune. Again, the chords remain the same; the only change is in the picking pattern.
This part starts here. I suggest giving a 4 count gap between the previous part and this part — makes it more dramatic.
OUTRO
The outro is basically the easy part without the open 1st string notes.
So there you have it. Once you pick this up, it’s all you’ll be playing all day. If you have any feedback/questions write to me: nowshoing@gmail.com. Feel free to send me your covers, would love to hear them. Adios \m/
