Make Yourself: Guitar Tab

This track captures everything that makes modern rock guitar engaging: rhythmic precision paired with melodic interest and enough textural variation to hold student attention across repeated practice sessions. The tab notation makes the iconic riffs immediately accessible, letting players focus on tone production and rhythmic pocket rather than guessing at technique.

Confident and direct. The song moves with purpose, built on a hypnotic guitar riff that sits somewhere between aggression and groove. There's enough going on to engage musicians without overwhelming them.

Guitar students who want to work with recognizable modern rock repertoire and understand how successful riffs are built. Teachers looking for material that motivates intermediate players while reinforcing fundamental technique and ensemble awareness.

• Lock the kick drum and kick bass guitar together in the main riff; this pocket drives the whole song forward and rewards tightness with real groove.
• Nail the dynamics on the verse sections. Incubus earns their peaks and valleys through controlled restraint, not just volume.
• Pay attention to muting; the percussive attack on the guitar riff comes from clean muting technique as much as picking accuracy.
• The transition between sections needs clarity. Mark those hits so the band moves as one unit.

Insert this as a standalone rock feature in a spring concert, or build a full band arrangement by adding drums and bass to balance an otherwise classical or jazz-heavy program. Students working toward a rock elective or capstone project can also use this as a foundation for arrangement studies.

• Reading and executing standard guitar tab notation
• Building rhythmic precision and pocket awareness
• Understanding percussive muting techniques
• Recognizing riff-based song structure
• Translating recorded tone into live performance