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Black Sabbath - War Pigs - Guitar Tab

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Key E minor
Black Sabbath - War Pigs guitar tab video
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Black Sabbath Heavy Metal E minor
Capo Advisor 0 E minor · Original key

About War Pigs

"War Pigs" is the opening track of Black Sabbath's second studio album, Paranoid, and stands as one of the band's defining anti-war statements. Built on slow, crushing riffs and dramatic tempo shifts, the song showcases Tony Iommi's influential approach to heavy metal rhythm guitar. For electric guitar players, it offers an essential study in down-tuned power chords, riff construction, and dynamic contrast between slow, heavy verses and faster, driving sections.

  • Tony Iommi's main riff uses a slow, crushing tempo that made 'War Pigs' a blueprint for heavy metal guitar writing.
  • The song runs nearly 8 minutes, making it an endurance test for guitarists practicing its multiple distinct riff sections.
  • As the opening track on Paranoid, 'War Pigs' was intended to set the tone for one of heavy metal's most influential albums.

How to Play War Pigs

The song moves through: Intro, Verse, Interlude, Bridge, Solo, Outro.

Key: E minor · Tempo: 92 BPM · Difficulty: Medium

The main challenge in War Pigs is managing the song's multiple distinct riff sections across nearly eight minutes, so learn each riff as a separate unit before chaining them together. The intro and verse riffs are built on slow, deliberate power chords in E minor, and the most common mistake is rushing them; the weight of the riff comes entirely from sitting in the groove at 92 bpm rather than anticipating the next chord. The interlude section shifts to a faster, more driving feel, so the tempo change itself requires attention since the two feels are easy to blur together. Use the section loop tool to isolate that transition until the rhythmic shift feels natural under your picking hand.

Use the section loop to isolate a passage, drop the speed below 100%, and set the metronome to 92 BPM to build it up to tempo.

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