Verse 1: Bm F# On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair A E Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air G D/F# Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light Em My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim F# I had to stop for the night Bm There she stood in the doorway F# I heard the mission bell A And I was thinking to myself, E 'This could be Heaven or this could be Hell' G Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way D/F# Em There were voices down the corridor, F# I thought I heard them say. I prefer a strum, because I do variated arpeggios for the solo. This is in fact an allegory for the self-destructive Southern Californian music industry at the time. The song talks of a luxury hotel in California, that once you enter, you can never leave. The single was a huge hit, just like the album itself, winning a Grammy for both Song of the Year and Record of the Year in 1978. Hotel California was released by the Eagles in 1977 first as a single, then on their fifth album, Hotel California.
#HOTEL CALIFORNIA GUITAR TAB HOW TO#
To sum it up, by learning how to play Hotel California, you get the chance to play an awesome, yet easy guitar song, and practice several guitar techniques that will really develop your skills, including chords, chord changes, arpeggios, and strumming.
If you’re a beginner guitarist and you haven’t used a capo before, make sure you try it out! You’ll notice that changing chords this high up the fretboard is actually easier than in their normal pitch since your fingers don’t have to stretch as far.
#HOTEL CALIFORNIA GUITAR TAB SERIES#
You’ll learn the famous intro solo to the song, which is made up of a series of arpeggiated chords, with some minor alterations.Īfterward, you’ll learn the strumming sequences the Eagles play during the verse, which will give you a chance to practice accented strumming and chord changes. Hotel California uses several chords, some of them will be revision, others totally new ones. Usually, you would place the capo as close to the fret bar as possible, but since the space between the frets gets smaller and smaller as you move up the fretboard, remember not to place it too close to the bar, so your hand has enough space to hold down the chords.Īnd many chords there will be, my young padawan guitarist :-). Firstly the correct use of the capo, which is placed onto fret 7 of this song. You’ll be learning and practicing several techniques in this lesson. To learn how to play this cover of the song, you’ll be needing a guitar capo, so if you don’t have one yet, I suggest you buy one now at your local music shop or online, and watch this lesson after it has arrived. Hotel California was a Grammy Award-winning hit at the end of the ‘70s and is still one of the best-known songs in the world. With our guitar tutorial on Hotel California, you will learn these guitar skills: