Figuring Out The Chords For No One Knows By Stone Age

I spent about three weeks trying to nail down the exact chord voicings for No One Knows by Stone Age. The internet is full of simplified tab that either misses the half-steps or just puts E minor all over the place, which sounds wrong if you actually listen to the track. The song sits in D standard tuning, which immediately shifts everything down a half-step from what you might expect. Once you account for that, most of the chords are just your standard open-position shapes moved up one fret. The trick is knowing which ones actually ring out clean on a guitar with medium gauge strings, and which ones sound better as barres.

Of The Stone Age No One Knows Chords Breakdown

The main progression uses F, Dm, Gm, and C. Those are standard shapes played in D standard. If you're strumming along to the original, you'll notice the chord at about 0:42 isn't a plain F major. It's an F6, or F add 13, depending on how you want to label it. The high D note on the B string keeps ringing while the F and C under it move. Most people just play a regular F and call it close enough, but it loses the color the record has. The bass line matters more than the strum pattern. I learned that the hard way when I tried playing this at a jam session and everyone else's guitars clashed with mine. The intro riff walks D to A to D to A in a specific rhythmic pattern. If you just power-chord along, you step on the bass movement. I switched to playing the root notes on the lower strings and letting the higher strings carry the chord voicings. That cleared up the mix immediately. Here's what works if you're playing live or recording: use a slightly compressed tone with a touch of reverb. The original has a bit of that studio sheen, and a dry electric guitar sounds thin against a drum loop. Gain around 4 or 5 on most amps, EQ set to scoop the mids just a little. This takes about ten minutes to dial in once you know what you're looking for. Another thing people miss is the palm muting on the verse chords. The riff is largely strummed, but the verse pulls back into tight muted strums that lock with the drums. If you play everything wide open, the energy stays flat. Muting the strings right at the bridge area during the verse sections gives you that punchback the song needs. Practice switching between the open strums and the muted versions slowly until your picking hand doesn't get tangled. For people playing along with a backing track, here's a rough timing reference. The intro riff runs for about 16 beats before the main chord progression enters. Then each chorus cycle runs roughly 8 bars at the recorded tempo of about 108 beats per minute. You can find free backing tracks on a few musician forums if you search for No One Knows Stone Age instrumental. I've used a few different ones over the years, and the ones uploaded by working session players tend to keep time more consistent than fan-recorded versions. If you want the exact tab notation, I usually pull from Guitar Pro files rather than plain text tabs because the timing and note duration are actually marked. There's a decent version on several guitar tab repositories, but most are missing the add 13 coloring I mentioned. A workable approximation is to play a regular F major shape and just add the D on the high E string, then let it ring while you move to the Dm. That gets you 90 percent there without needing to refinger constantly. I also found that some players switch to D standard tuning and others just transpose everything up a half-step to E standard. Both work, but the transposed version sounds slightly sharper and can be easier if your guitar is already set up for E standard. The tradeoff is that the tone loses some of the darker quality the record has. It depends on whether you're going for accuracy or convenience. I usually recommend D standard if you have a spare guitar you don't mind restringing, otherwise stick with the transposition and accept the slight difference. The outro uses the same chord progression but adds a repeated double-stop on the G and B strings. That figure wraps up the song and signals the end of the main cycle. It's simple to learn once you hear it a few times, and it's worth practicing separately before trying to play the whole thing straight through. I spend about five minutes each session drilling just the outro transitions so my fingers remember the shifts without thinking about them. If you run into problems with the F major barre feeling too harsh or the F6 shape slipping out of tune, try using a lighter touch on the barre and focusing your pressure just enough to keep the strings touching the fret. Over-gripping is a common mistake that makes the chord sound strained and makes it harder to transition quickly. This usually resolves the issue within a few practice sessions.