Adventure of a Lifetime Guitar Lesson – Coldplay

Genre:

Difficulty:
Length: 11:56

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Wikipedia page
Artist website
Music video

• Barre chords
• Fast plucking
• Funk guitar rhythm

The first time I heard Adventure of a Lifetime was at the Super Bowl 50 Halftime Show. I loved the riff and grabbed my guitar as soon as I got home to learn it.

In this tutorial, I’ll teach you how to play that riff, as well as the rhythm section of the song. It’s so interesting to realize that these 2 sections make up the entire guitar parts of the song. Just a 2 bar riff, and a 2 bar rhythm guitar bit.

The song is played in the key of Am, at 112 BPM.

We’ll start the lesson by learning to play the riff note for note. It’s played on the Am scale of course, and it’s not the easiest riff you’ll ever learn. You’ll need to stretch your pink, and move your hand position pretty fast, to get up to speed.

The key to learning to play fast riffs like this (and learning to play fast in general) is to start out slow. I propose the following:

1. Start playing it at 70 BPM with a metronome.
2. Once you can play it PERFECTLY at this speed, increase it by 10 BPM.
3. Repeat the process until you get up to 112 BPM.

In the video tutorial, I forgot to mention that the first 2 notes of the riff don’t start on the 1^st beat of the measure, rather the 4 & beat of the previous measure. Keep that in mind when practicing it with the metronome.

Here is the drums track I used during the lesson, this is at 112 BPM.

You can also find slower drum tracks to practice with on our backing tracks page.

And of course, make sure to use a metronome. I love using metronome apps (like Guitar Tuna) on my phone, or you can use our online metronome as well.

After the riff, we’ll learn to play the rhythm guitar section of Adventure of a Lifetime. It uses a funk guitar rhythm, with typical funk guitar chords. Lots of scratching and muting. Not easy. Like the riff, this will take time to learn. Hang in there! I’ll walk you through the details in the video.

Alternatively, I’ll teach you an easier way to play the rhythm guitar bit, using open chords, and barre chords.

Last but not least, we’ll learn to play the solo you’ll hear at the end of the song. This will be a relief since it is the easiest part of the song J

Adventure of a Lifetime song details

The song was released in 2015 by the British band Coldplay, on their album A Head Full of Dreams.

The music video of the song was really interesting. It is about a bunch of chimpanzees, who find an MP3 player. They love listening to music and form a band, singing, dancing, and playing instruments.

The chimpanzees were created using the body motions of the actual band members in a special video studio, where their motions were recorded, and animated with the CGI chimpanzees.

Adventure of a Lifetime chart rankings

The song reached the top 20 positions in many countries:

• Austria (Ö3 Austria Top 40): #14
• Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders): #5
• Belgium (Ultratop 50 Wallonia): #2
• Canada (Canadian Hot 100): #11
• Finland (Suomen virallinen lista): #13
• France (SNEP): #2
• Germany (Official German Charts): #5
• Hungary (Single Top 40): #5
• Ireland (IRMA): #8
• Israel (Media Forest): #1
• Italy (FIMI): #3
• Netherlands (Single Top 100): #11
• Mexico Ingles Airplay (Billboard): #1
• Scotland (Official Charts Company): #8
• Slovakia (Rádio Top 100): #20
• South Africa (EMA): #2
• Spain (PROMUSICAE): #2
• UK Singles (Official Charts Company): #7
• US Billboard Hot 100: #13

The song was played at Super Bowl 50 in the Half-Time show.

If you want to refine the skills you learned in Adventure of a Lifetime, check out these lessons on songs by clicking these links:
Barre chords / Fast plucking / Funk guitar rhythm

Please log in and revisit this page to download this song's tabs and backing track (along with hundreds more on the site).