Getting the Soundgarden Sound Right
The original recording uses E standard tuning, which is unusual for a Soundgarden song and worth noting upfront because most people expect drop D or something lower. The main progression runs through E major, Cminor, A major, and B major, but the way Chris Cornell and Kim Thayil played them matters more than just knowing the chord names. The E chord has that open top E ring while the D string gets bent into a #11 flavor by the pick hand. It gives the whole thing that suspended, uneasy quality instead of sitting comfortably in a major key. Here is the progression in its simplest form: E | C#m | A | B. Play it four times through for the verse, then shift to the chorus voicings which use E | B/D| C#m | A. The bass note movement on the chorus is what creates that descending feel, especially the B to Dtransition. Dis really an F note enharmonically, but calling it Dmakes the harmonic function clearer when you are analyzing the line moving down chromatically from B. I spent maybe six months trying to get the verse riff to sound right before I realized I was fretting the E chord wrong. Everyone plays it with the first finger on the G string second fret, but that mutes the high E string and kills the shimmer. The fix was to let the high E ring open and just barre the second fret across strings 4 through 1 with the index finger, using the middle and ring fingers for the G and B string notes. This one change made the difference between sounding like a cover and actually getting close to the tone. It also changed my wrist angle significantly, so I had to adjust my pick grip to compensate.
The chorus B/Dvoicing trips a lot of people up. The Dis played on the fifth string, third fret, which means your thumb wraps over the neck to fret that note while your other fingers handle the B chord shape. If you have smaller hands or a thick guitar neck, this can be brutal. I switched to using just my index finger for the Dand letting it also lightly touch the A string fifth fret to create a partial barre. It is not textbook technique, but it works and it reduces the stretch considerably. A lot of players just give up on this chord and play a plain B instead, which sounds flat and misses the whole point of the harmony. Tempo is around 82 beats per minute in 4/4 time, which is slow enough that every fretting hand mistake is going to be obvious. I recommend practicing with a metronome at 60 bpm first, getting each transition clean, and only then increasing by five bpm increments. Most people try to play at full speed on day one and develop bad habits that take months to unlearn. The C#m to A transition is the weakest link for most players. The C#m requires stretching your ring and pinky fingers across strings 5 through 1 at the fourth fret, then immediately collapsing into the A shape which sits mostly around the second and third frets. Practice this specific move in isolation until it takes less than a second to switch cleanly. The guitar tone on the record uses a Marshall JCM 800 through a Dietrich pedal for the crunch, with heavy compression on the clean passages. If you are trying to match the sound with digital plugins, slap on a compressor before the amp sim and set the gain low. The song relies on dynamics, not distortion. Playing harder does not make it sound more like the record, it just makes it louder and mushier.
There is a section after the second chorus where the chords shift to a Eadd9 | C#m7 | A | B pattern that many tutorials skip entirely. This is the pre-bridge passage and it appears at the 2:47 mark on the original. The add9 on the E chord is played by fretting the high E string second fret with your pinky while keeping the open high E also ringing, creating that double-stop sound. If you ignore this part your cover will sound like it is missing a section, which it basically is since you left out half the song. One thing nobody mentions about this progression is that the B major chord is used as a secondary dominant pulling toward E, but it also functions as a passing chord back to the E in the turnaround. This dual role is why the song never really feels like it resolves completely, and it is central to the unsettled mood. If you play the B as a simple triad without the sharp eleventh on the G string, it loses that tension and the whole emotional arc falls apart. Fret the G string fourth fret with your ring finger on the B chord to nail this. The main limitations of learning this song by chord charts alone are significant. The tab and chord information online is almost universally wrong about the tuning, and many sources list it in E standard when the recording is actually in a slightly flat E standard, probably around 430 Hz instead of the standard 440 Hz. This matters if you are trying to play along with the track because your guitar will sound sharp by comparison after a few minutes. Tuning down about a quarter tone fixes this. It also makes the strings looser, which helps with the bends and the overall feel of the riff.
Get the Full Details
If you are struggling with the finger stretches or you have wrist issues from playing guitar long enough to know better, consider using a capo on the first fret and playing in D standard shapes. The tonality shifts down slightly but the fingerings become much more comfortable, and the song still sounds correct. This is what I ended up doing after two years of forcing the original positions and dealing with mild tendonitis in my left hand. The solo section uses the same chord progression underneath but Thayil plays a melodic line that mirrors the vocal melody from the verse. Learning to play along with this solo rather than just strumming chords will teach you more about the song's structure than any guide ever will. Listen to the solo at around 3:15 and try to figure out the notes by ear before looking them up. The main phrase repeats three times with slight variations and it lives mostly in the E minor pentatonic box shape starting at the seventh fret. Quick reference for the main voicings: E major open shape with open high E, C#m at the fourth fret full barre, A major open position, B major with fourth fret G string, B/Dwith thumb on fifth string third fret. The chorus swaps the A for an A add9 by adding the second fret on the high E string with the pinky.
That covers the practical details. The song is deceptively simple on paper but the performance nuances are what separate a decent attempt from something that actually works. Spend time on the transitions and the voicing choices before you worry about speed or tone.
