Tom Delonge’s guitar skills may not be the most impressive thing on the planet, but he does have enough skills to become a punk rock icon. Because of Blink 182’s catchy music, they’ve played hundreds of shows for thousands of dedicated fans.
But what should a beginning guitarist do in order to master the skills that Tom Delonge has? Here are 7 tips that can hone your skills into a rock guitarist.
1. Learn to play in different tunings.
Even though Delonge’s guitar parts are usually played in standard tuning, quite a few are played in other tunings like drop ‘d’. Check out other tunings to really expand your knowledge of the strings and the notes on each fret.
2. Use a guitar with a thinner neck.
You may have noticed that punk rock bands usually have Fenders and other similar-made guitars because of the thin necks for faster playing action. Buy a thin-necked guitar so that you can increase your playing speed to bang out those fast chords.
3. Become an adequate player with rhythm and lead riffs.
Tom Delonge is a decent guitarist because he’s forced to mix lead and rhythm riffs in each song, being the only guitarist in the band. In order to really get a feel for playing like Blink 182, you need to learn chords and catchy lead sections for your guitar arsenal.
4. Master pull-offs and hammer-ons.
Two of the most common guitar skills in punk rock music for lead riffs are pull-offs and hammer-ons. These are fairly easy skills to master and they’ll make you look like a pro when you’re on stage.
5. Get a hold of a guitar tab book from one of the Blink 182 albums.
Wouldn’t it be great to know exactly what Tom Delonge was playing when he recorded on the Blink 182 albums? Well you can!
There’s a guitar tablature book for each album that tells every single note that he played. Go out and learn what Blink 182 was really doing in their songs.
6. Use a mixture of palm-muted and open notes.
Being able to showcase diversity in your playing is a big part of playing guitar. Try switching up your playing style between palm-mutes and open notes when you’re playing guitar songs.
7. Practice Blink 182 songs in order to get the feel of how Tom Delonge writes and plays.
The more you’re familiar with how Tom Delonge plays his guitar, the closer you’ll be to mastering his skills. See if you can play through an entire album by Blink 182 without it causing too many problems.
Becoming familiar with how Tom Delonge performs and plays is the real key to learning his trade. Try to develop your own style as you follow these tips so that maybe you can be the one on stage some day.