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Rise
by Eddie Vedder • Lesson #600 • Sep 18, 2025
About This Lesson
In this lesson I’ll teach you to play Eddie Vedder’s beautiful song Rise from the Into The Wild soundtrack. Since its release, this song has been one of my favorite songs of the 2000s — and I’m excited to share the various tips & tricks I’ve put together from many years of playing it.
Eddie Vedder performs this song with a mandolin — which we can’t imitate 1:1 on a guitar. However, it is possible to capture most of his melodic strumming by using a capo on the 5th fret. That allows us to use common chord shapes (D, G, A) - which enables us to play some reasonably approachable runs in the first 3 frets. I’ll start simple and build from there… come along on the journey if you’d like to learn this one!
- 0:00 Lesson Overview
- 1:21 Rhythm & Strumming
- 2:16 Campfire Chords
- 4:39 Melodic Strumming: Verse
- 10:14 Melodic Strumming: Chorus
- 13:51 Full Playthrough
- 15:33 Farewell & Misc Advice
Quick Links
- Lyric & chords
- Album Wikipedia page
- Official Album Recording on YouTube
- Eddie Vedder Live Performance played on mandolin
- Eddie Vedder & Sean Penn Interview on Charlie Rose
Practice Notes 3 pages
Lesson Discussion
Extended Video Lessons
Here’s a few extra videos, made in thanks to those supporting me with Premium membership here on my Song Notes website. To those showing your support, you have my true thanks and appreciation — and I hope you find these additional videos helpful!
Part 2: Intro Riff, Interlude, and Performance Tips
Playthrough: Campfire Strumming
This shows the easiest possible way to play this song. I demonstrate how you can use a single strumming pattern to play the intro, verse, and chorus section — no need for fancy melodic bits, if you’re not ready for those or don’t want to add them. Use this to play along and practice, especially if you’re just getting started with this song.
Playthrough: Melodic Strumming
A trickier way to play things, but goes a long way in capture Eddie Vedder’s mandolin arrangement. This includes a playthrough (intro, verse, chorus) without singing — and then I go through again with singing, so you can hear how it sounds when the melodic strumming is combined with vocals.
Related & Recommended
From a technique and theory standpoint, here’s some lessons I’ve made that apply to this song & my video lesson:
If you’re after more songs in 6/8 time, here’s a list of all the ones I’ve got!
Browse Related Lessons
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