Stevie Wonder wrote “Superstition” on the spot — Jeff Beck laid down a drumbeat in the studio, Wonder started improvising over it, and the riff, groove, and melody all poured out live in one take. That spontaneous energy is exactly what makes it so hard to pin down and so much fun to play. In this lesson, Marty Schwartz breaks down the iconic riff, the tuning setup, the scale the whole song lives in, and the Hendrix-style chord that makes the rhythm part sing.
Tuning Down to Eb
Before Marty plays a single note, he tunes the whole guitar down a half step to Eb standard. This isn’t optional — there’s a low Eb in the riff, and without the detune, the open-string position won’t work. Every string drops one half step: Eb Ab Db Gb Bb Eb.
Once the guitar is in Eb, Marty points out something that makes the song click immediately: sit at a piano and slap the black keys. That’s it. You’re already playing the Eb minor pentatonic scale — the exact scale “Superstition” is built on. The whole song, from the clavinet riff to the horn lines, lives inside those five notes.
On guitar, that scale sits in one tight little box at the low end of the neck — the same five notes you’ll lean on for the riff and any soloing.
The Main Riff
The riff Stevie Wonder played was on a Hohner Clavinet — an electromechanical keyboard with a percussive, guitar-like attack. Marty runs the Boss Katana with an envelope filter patch to get close to that wah-filtered clavinet feel on guitar. The patch is a free download linked in the video description.
Here’s how the riff lays out. It starts on the open low E (sounding as Eb after the detune), then climbs through the pentatonic box:
- Open low E string (Eb) — the starting note
- 5th fret, then 7th fret on the low E
- 5th and 7th fret on the A string
- 5th fret on the D string, then over to the A string
Marty takes it slow from the top: open E, then up through frets 5 and 7 on each string, back up to the 7th fret of the low E — which is the octave of the open string. That octave climb is what gives the riff its lift.
From there the riff moves up the neck. Marty hits the 9th and 7th frets on the G string, then runs a short blues phrase: 7, 8, 9. Then a slide from the 10th fret up to the 12th, back to 10. That slide is the signature move — it’s where the riff gets its greasy feel. After that, he lands back on the 9th fret of the G string before the phrase resolves.
The Chorus Chords — Bb7 and the Turnaround
When the song hits “Superstition…” on the chorus, the harmony moves. Marty describes it as a blues-style turnaround: a Bb7 bar chord, then up a half step, back down a half step, then down again, landing on A before jumping up a whole step to hit B on the word “Superstition.”
The chord movement is quick and punchy. Power chords work here, but Marty leans toward the full bar chord voicing to capture the horn-section stab feel.
The Hendrix Chord for Rhythm
The original recording doesn’t have a rhythm guitar part — Wonder covered everything on keyboards. But Marty argues the E7#9 chord fits the song’s funk DNA perfectly. It’s the same voicing Jimi Hendrix used on “Purple Haze”: a dominant 7th with a sharp 9 on top. The tension in that chord — major and minor living in the same voicing — is exactly the kind of harmonic grit “Superstition” runs on.
Marty throws this in on the verse and groove sections as an alternative to just sitting on the single-note riff. It thickens the sound and keeps the rhythm part interesting without fighting the clavinet line.
The Horn Riff
The breakdown section has a signature horn line that Marty treats as a separate lick worth learning. It stays in the minor pentatonic box but moves up the neck a bit. The core move: 9th and 7th frets on the G string, then the blues run up through 7, 8, 9, and the slide from 10 to 12 — 12 to 10. Marty repeats the 9th fret of the G string a second time to set up the phrase. It’s a compact lick, but it sounds like the whole horn section when you play it with a bit of envelope or wah.
Why This Song Works on Guitar
“Superstition” was written on keyboards, but it translates to guitar almost effortlessly because it’s built entirely on blues architecture. One scale, one box position, a pentatonic riff with a slide — every piece of it is natural guitar vocabulary. The Eb tuning is the only real adjustment, and once that’s in, the open-string position makes the riff feel like it was always meant to be played this way.
The clavinet’s percussive attack translates best with some envelope filter or wah in the signal. If you don’t have an effect pedal handy, palm-muting the riff and leaning on the attack of the pick gets you closer than you’d expect.
Putting It Together
Marty’s approach to this song is to learn the pieces in order: tune down first, lock in the main riff from the open-position pentatonic box, then work in the slide at frets 10-12. Once that feels solid, add the horn riff as a second phrase. The Bb7 turnaround on the chorus is the last piece — it’s simple once the riff is under your fingers.
Start slow. The groove of “Superstition” is everything, and a slow, accurate version of this riff sounds better than a fast, sloppy one every time. Get the feel right, then bring the tempo up. That’s where the song lives.
