Ah, Sultans of Swing! What a great song filled with great guitar playing. Mark Knopfler really shows his stuff in this one.
There are a couple of things that you should know about Mark’s playing:
- He doesn’t use a pick (except sometimes while playing rhythm)
- His lead playing is very subtle
The first solo from Sultans is probably the easiest of the two solos and reveals to us many Knopflerisms.
In the video below I’ll break down the solo for you and show you a performance with just fingerpicking and then one using a pick:
Solo 1 Tab
Below is the PDF of just the first solo:
Backing Track
Here’s a sweet backing track that you can practice over: