Welcome to our course on mastering riffs! We have done some work in the past on riffs, but have focused mainly on soloing and improvising. Being able to play riffs is equally as challenging as soloing as your consistency and rhythm have to be perfect! The term riff often gets used to describe rock, but is equally as important in blues, funk, indie and many other genres. We will be looking over typical rock, blues, funk and indie riffs to give you a solid idea as to how each genre uses the riff. Have fun!
A riff is a repetitive musical phrase. This is the simple definition but the best way to really understand what a riff is is to listen to, analyse and learn some riffs! We will be looking at rock, blues, funk and indie riffs to show you the difference between them. Here are some classic riffs and what defines them in each genre:
This Led Zeppelin riff is one of the most instantly recognisable riffs ever... and it’s so simple! As you can hear, it mainly consists of just two chords, a few pentatonic notes and a great rhythm! The use of palm muting and dynamics really brings the riff to life.
This Muddy Waters riff is simple but incredibly powerful. The riff is made up of just 3 or 4 notes but is brought to life with the rhythm! Combine that with the amazing vocals of Muddy Waters, a solid drum beat and the occasional guitar fill and you have a truly classic track!
Nile Rogers is the master of funk guitar riffs, and this particular song is probably the most famous of them all! Le Freak utilises the scale notes underneath a basic A minor chord and is played by strumming the notes rather than just picking. The strummed element adds to the groove and gives the song its character and sound.
Like this awesome Arctic Monkeys tune, a lot of indie riffs are written with a combination of chords and lead parts. As is often the case with indie, the attitude is as important as the technique! This riff oozes indie rhythm as it is straight, aggressive and edgy!
Your first job is simple... Just listen! This is a classic sounding rock riff, based around powerchords and pentatonic melodies. Pay close attention to the dynamics within the song, as that is a big part of getting the rock sound. We'll start learning this in the next lesson.
Let’s begin by tackling a rock riff! Rock is all about solid rhythms, big distortion and energy! This riff demonstrates how using your pentatonic notes, the odd powerchord, and some heavy distortion can really bring life to the simplest of ideas. Make sure you can also visualise the pentatonic shapes you are using... in this case, it is mainly the Pentatonic Shape 3, as shown in the fretboard diagrams.
We will now look at the second part of this riff where we are playing palm muted power chords. This technique can be tricky at first as you have to adjust your right hand to play it properly. However, once you get the palm muting together, this second section shouldn't challenge you too much! In terms of the structure of the tune, it is as follows:
Your first job is simple... Just listen! This is a classic sounding bluesy riff, based around the pentatonic melodies. Pay close attention to the dynamics within the song, as that is a big part of getting the blues sound. We'll start learning this in the next lesson.
This blues riff is an idea borrowed from great players such as Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy. The riff is groove-based only around E7 and uses the E minor pentatonic scale (with the odd extra note that really adds a bluesy edge). Again, as with all riffs, the main focus is the groove and timing. You need to get your foot tapping on the floor whilst you play this riff as I show you in the video! The E minor pentatonic scale position 1 and 2 can be found in the fretboard diagrams, so you can clearly see where the riff is based.
Let's piece the whole thing together! You can now go through the whole tab as we have covered every lick. Good luck!
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