Learn to play Hells Bells by AC/DC on JustinGuitar!
View the full lesson at Hells Bells by AC/DC | JustinGuitar
I’m currently midway-ish through grade 2, on the power chord module and I’m trying to learn this song. HUGE emphasis on the “trying”. I’m finding it very challenging and I feel like this lesson is indeed for a bit later in my journey, but nailing these riffs feels sooooo satisfying. I also have an SG, so I pretty much HAVE to learn a full AC/DC song at some point. Great lesson, gonna be revisiting it quite a bit over the next couple of days or weeks or whatever time it takes!
Hells Bells has some faster changes that I still don’t have quite right. The opening riff can be confusing (fingers in knots) for a while as well.
In Grade 2, I took on The Jack. It is slower and fairly straight-forward grips. The only thing that took time was waiting for my hand to adapt to the stretches in the opening riff.
Sounds pretty close on my SG with a Plexi model on the processor.
I agree with sequences. I just started Grade 4, and I have been working on the intro riff for Hells Bells for 2-3 months now. It definitely involves left-hand technique that I was not ready for when I was in Grade 2. I also learned The Jack when I was in level 2, and can confirm that, other than the stretchy part in the beginning, is the right amount of a challenge for a Grade 2 learner.
YMMV
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Highway to hell is also a fun pick 
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The most difficult thing I find in hells bells is linking the riffs together. I don’t have much of an issue playing the riffs separately, but I feel like I use too much brain power while playing the riff, by the time it’s time to switch to the next one, my brain goes into “huh” mode haha. I guess beating this stage would be just time and practice.
The opening riff loop (without the stretchy power chords → A part at the end) is the very first thing I learned to play on guitar this summer, so it kinda makes sense to go a step further and learn the whole song.
However, The Jack sounds like something that I can definitely pick up easier than Hells Bells, I’ll give it a try today, was never planning to learn just one AC/DC song anyway!
Thanks for the tip!
Teo
There are a couple things to help there. I heard it said that you never stop at the end of a bar, always play the next note of the next bar. For your riff then, you want to end the first riff and transition into the second before stopping the dedicated practice of the first riff and starting it over. This will get you set up not having the “uhhh” moment. I need a LOT of this kind of thing on some stuff and very little on other other. Anything partially familiar because of another song I know will be trouble for me.
You can always just practice the transitions as well - a bar or two of the first then a bar of the second. When I learn stuff in segments, I need to do this kind of practice to tie stuff together so I don’t get a train wreck. Initially, I often need to go super slow to figure out my hand movement, then start to add timing and then speed it up. It is usually much faster than learning the segments.
On The Jack, be mindful of the palm muting of the E and A shuffle rhythm parts. Getting that set up correctly will make your part in playing sound really nice. I don’t remember Justin mentioning this in the lesson.
Also, in the middle of the solo, (assuming you are playing the rhythm portion) there is a little flourish transitioning from E to A and again back to E. Listen for it. I’d bet you can figure it out and it is fun to include once the shuffle becomes easy.
hmm, this kind of deviated from Hells Bells. oops. 
This is my current stumbling block as well. Getting my fingers to land in the right place for the transition from the G5 and D5 to the “stretchy” power chords, then back to the beginning of the riff. I’m drilling this section at 70bpm right now, and I’ll get it down eventually, but the left hand makes big jumps up and down the fretboard in this section, and I’m struggling to land my fingers just right to get the 8th-note 1/2 step slide on the A string during the “stretchy” power chords and then making sure I don’t accidentally mute the A string when I move my hand back up the fretboard to start the riff over or move to the next section.
If it was easy, it wouldn’t be so rewarding when you finally nail it!