This solo is rather easy because it basically repeats itself. You will be in standard tuning, so there’s no need to tune differently. The popular “solo” below is one of the only ones that Kurt Cobain ever really played.

The Solo

Let’s break down the fingerings:

In the first measure, you’ll see that you are going to only need one finger, which is the 1st finger. There are no real musical notes to watch for in this entire bar, so you should be able to brisk right through this.

The second measure is where you provide the slide both back and forth. You are going to need to slide ONTO the seventh fret FROM the fourth fret, while quickly playing the open note on the “High E” string. You will probably be able to do this by default, as it is very easy to strike the open string on the “High E” string when sliding to the seventh fret.

Note- Notice that while you are sliding BOTH your 1st and 2nd fingers, you are only striking the seventh fret note while sliding in the second measure of the solo. For example, you never see both notes needing to be slid until the third measure below.
You’ll see what I mean when you start playing it.

The third measure is a little bit trickier, but it’s roughly the same idea as the first measure. This time, you WILL need to use both fingers to slide. That is noted below by both notes sliding in unison together. This is also where you see that I have included the fingerings, stacked on top of each other. Once you play the third measure, the fourth measure is a breeze.

The last measure is really easy. It follows the same idea as the second, but this time, you simply play the fifth fret on the B string, and lightly pick the notes to end the measure.

You Try It!

You can see the other part of the solo is almost the same as what you learned above. This time, I won’t include the fingerings. Try it for yourself and see how you do. You can always look above and get the fingerings down if you need to, but try it first.