Stairway to Heaven Strumming

Learn the strumming section at the end of Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven in this fingerstyle ukulele lesson.

An epic descending chord progression

After several verses filled out by Robert Plant’s brilliant, imaginative lyrics, and a bridge, Stairway breaks into a descending-chord rock pattern that sets up the guitar solo. This strumming section follows the following chord pattern:

Am-G-F (with a passing C chord at the end)

Rhythmic strumming pattern

But what makes this section so engaging and powerful is the rhythm. In between eighth note downstrums on each chord, Jimmy Page includes muted sixteenth-note chord strums.

In the link above you can download the worksheet to get all the left-hand fingerings and the strumming pattern. Pretty soon you’ll be rocking out like Jimmy Page on your uke!

If you’d like to learn more, Jeff also has a tutorial based on his full arrangement of the song for the intro. And if you haven’t heard Jeff play the full song (including the epic solo!) you should check that out here!

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