This lesson provided by Dave Navarro, ex-guitarist for Red Hot Chili Peppers. Aeroplane is one of the leaner tracks on One Hot Minute. There are only a couple of guitars on this song no more than three. The intro is dou­bled two guitars and played with a clean sound. There’s a little bit of delay and tremolo bar on that part.

Aeroplane. The Rhythm

For the main strummed guitar parts, what you might call “the funky parts” the rhythm parts in the verses and cho­ruses – I

used a clean sound also. These were played on a Fender Stratocaster, direct into the console. This was one of my custom shop Strats with Texas Special pickups. Incidentally, I’m actu­ally in the process of designing my own Strat right now – the next one will include a high output humbucker.

In coming up with these parts I was­n’t necessarily trying to be funky; I was just trying to complement the bass line. In the verses, I used two-note voicings in the chord progression to keep it clean, open and simple (Fig. 1). I play the chorus rhythm parts differently live. On the record, I used these voicings (Fig. 2). They’re four-note chords at the 5th fret. Live, I play the figure at the 10th fret.

Aeroplane. The Soloing

There are two sections in the Aeroplane choruses where you can hear soloing behind the vocal. These have a different sound – they’re done with a wah-wah pedal and a Boss digital delay box into a Marshall JCM-900 amp, which is is pretty much my normal sig­nal path for leads.

In the guitar solo, I saved the fast triplet lick for the end (Fig. 3). I think that sometimes, more than anything else, solos need to shift gears to remain interesting. That was my strategy. I was playing a lot of long, held notes, and needed the contrast. I felt that it was musically necessary to have the change of approach.

It’s a part of Red Hot Chili Peppers Aeroplane guitar tab and sheet.

Through the link below you can download a full transcription of

Aeroplane with backing track

DOWNLOAD HERE