Dave Grohl made a name for himself as the drummer of Nirvana, being one of many to lay the groundwork for the Seattle grunge scene. But when he started Foo Fighters, he took on frontman duties, including the guitar. Now, sometimes it’s easy to forget that Grohl started out on drums, but once you learn how he approached the guitar, it becomes impossible to forget.
For a 2013 segment with the interview series Off Camera with Sam Jones, Grohl explained that he was never into taking music lessons. “I didn’t take lessons to learn the drums,” he said. “I did it on my bed listening to f***ing Rush records and punk rock.”
He did clarify that he took one drum lesson, but that was already after he’d taught himself. The instructor told him he was holding his sticks wrong, and Grohl explained, “I don’t have 30 dollars an hour to sit here and relearn what I’ve learned.”
So when he was learning to play acoustic guitar, he approached it in an interesting yet similar way. “I play guitar the way I do it,” he said. “I don’t know what any of the chords really are.” Picking up a guitar, Grohl strummed a bit, saying, “I mean, I know the basic chords.”
Dave Grohl’s Unorthodox Approach to Teaching Himself Acoustic Guitar
Dave Grohl continued, “But the way I look at a guitar is like a drum set,” he said. “I look at the lower strings like they’re kicks and snares, and I look at [the higher ones] like they’re cymbals.”
He demonstrated his technique, strumming an alternating phrase. “It’s almost like a kick-snare pattern,” he said. Then, he tuned his guitar way down and began the intro to “Everlong”. It used a similar repeating phrase, and Grohl explained, “I would accentuate that like it was a kick-snare pattern.”
Setting the guitar aside for a moment, Grohl explained a bit more about his technique. “When I play the drums, like in a verse,” he said, “I’ll play tight on a high hat. But when the chorus comes in, and I want to open it up, I’ll wash on a cymbal, just to give this lush [whooshing sound].”
He gave that demonstration of “washing the cymbal,” describing it as a sound “like waves.” Grohl then added, “I do the same thing on a guitar where I let the strings ring out in sort of like suspended notes.”
Once you equate Dave Grohl’s guitar playing with a suspended, ringing cymbal wash, it’s hard to hear anything else. This unique take on transitioning to another instrument highlights the benefits of teaching yourself to play. Taking lessons to learn the basics is all well and good. But when you take your education into your own hands, oftentimes innovative and unusual techniques emerge that set many musicians apart.
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