Hi fam,

Welcome to this lesson on the second solo for the Dire Straits song “Sultans of Swing.” The video, TAB, and jam track are here on this page to make learning as fun and easy as possible. Let us know if you have any questions as you progress. You can also send us any song lesson requests you may have. support@guitarfam.com

Like the first solo for “Sultans of Swing” this one is an excellent study in using arpeggios to solo over chord changes. Some of the passages here are pretty challenging. I recommend learning one lick at a time and slowing things way down before trying to play it to a metronome or the jam track.

Normally, I would use a pick or some hybrid picking to play a solo like this, but I wanted to keep things as authentic as possible. I ended up ditching my pick, and using just my thumb and fingers like Mark Knopfler. It doesn’t matter how you choose to pick this song as long as you get the right-sounding results.

This is a great solo to choose as a “hill to die on” because you can learn so much about guitar soloing in general from it. Give it a shot, and let us know how it goes.

Thanks for watching,
Nate