Most learn it as a series of chunky barre chords, but Blackmore has explained that it’s a series of harmonized parallel fourths, plucked, never picked, in the third position.īlackmore used his famous 1968 black Stratocaster to record the song - the first of many Stratocaster models Blackmore would use throughout his career. Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice laid down a rhythm “and I basically played along,” he said.Ī four-note blues scale melody in G minor, you can approach the riff in different ways depending on your skill level.

“Had the Montreux police had their way,” he said, “we never would’ve recorded 'Smoke on the Water.'”īlackmore explains the origins of the song and how to play it correctly.īlackmore recalled being aware of “trying to write something very, very simple and straightforward,” he told Guitar Player. Blackmore recalled to Guitar Player in 2016 that they were in the middle of committing the song to tape when the local police began pounding on the theater doors. They weren’t there long though as noise complaints brought the authorities. Afterwards, with the casino theater off the table as a studio, he helped set up the band at a small theater called the Pavillion. Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and the rest of the band watched as the building where they were set to record sent plumes of smoke billowing into the air across Lake Geneva and burned to the ground.Ĭlaude Nobs - “Funky Claude” in the song and creator of the Montreux Jazz Festival - helped firefighters drag frantic concert-goers to safety. 4, 1971, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention were 90 minutes into a set at the Montreaux Casino when a rowdy audience member fired a flare gun toward the theater’s aged wooden roof. A live version of 'Smoke on the Water' from 1972.

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