Palm Muting

Palm muting is a common technique in all styles of guitar music and is performed by laying the side of the strumming hand across the strings just before they meet the bridge. It is important to ensure the palm of the hand is placed correctly, if the hand is too far back no muting will occur if the hand is too far forward too much muting will occur.

Palm muting is shown in notation with the letters PM followed by a broken line, this line encases the notes that are to be palm muted.

The exercise below uses a G5 chord, which is played with an eighth note strum pattern with all down strokes. Practise applying palm muting to the chord as described above.

Palm muting is a very useful technique to add dynamics to a song, mixing palm muted and non-palm muted notes can also make the rhythm more interesting and help to drive the song along.

Below is the Intro to “Glycerine” recorded by Bush and taken from their debut album Sixteen Stone. The song comprises of only four chords but uses a mixture of palm muted and non-palm muted notes to create a syncopated rhythm, this adds interest to the otherwise repetitive chord progression.

Glycerine (Bush)

Below is a power chord riff taken from the intro to “For Whom the Bell Tolls” by Metellica and features on their second album 1984’s “Ride the Lightning”. The riff employs chromatic descending power chords, which should all be played with down strokes and palm muting except for the last chord in bars two and four, which are non-palm muted and accented. The mixture of chromatic chords and palm muting creates a menacing riff, which is a major component of the metal genre. The riff is also a great power chord work out requiring both speed and accuracy so start off slowly making sure all of the notes are heard in each chord.

For Whom The Bell Tolls (Metallica)

Augmented & Diminished power chords

Augmented and diminished power chords are only slight variations of our original power chord shape. In comparison to our original power chord an augmented power chord has a sharpened fifth, meaning the fifth has been moved up a fret. A diminished power chord compared to our original power chord has a flattened fifth meaning the fifth has been moved down a fret. Shown below are all three types of power chord all starting on “A”:

A power chord contains two notes; the root and the fifth. In an “A” power chord played on the sixth string the root note is on the sixth string fifth fret and the fifth is on the fifth string seventh fret. To make this chord in to an “A” diminished power chord simply flatten the fifth by playing the sixth fret on the “A” string. To make an augmented power chord raise the fifth by playing the eighth fret on the “A” string.

The picture below shows the movement of the fifth:

To illustrate the use of augmented power chords I have chosen the main riff from “Lose Yourself” by Eminem which consists of a simple two bar power chord riff starting out with a “D” power chord in the first bar moving to a “D” augmented power chord in the second.

The riff should be played with down strokes (except the last note of bar two) and palm muted throughout. All of the chords should be played staccato. To play a chord staccato simply cut the chord short with a rest, this can be achieved by taking the pressure off of the chord. Beats two and four should be accented shown by a > under the note head.

You will also need to barre both the sixth and fifth strings using your first finger throughout in preparation for the 10th fret double stop at the end of the second bar.

Lose Yourself (Eminem)

To illustrate the use of diminished power chords I have chosen the verse from Since U Been Gone by Kelly Clarkson. The verse starts with a G5 chord that lasts for one and a half bars, on the third beat in the second bar the A5 chord is introduced with the rhythm changing slightly on the fourth beat from two eighth notes to a quarter note.

When playing the E5 in bar three remain in the power chord shape by using your third finger on the second fret of the “A” string, when it comes to the “F” diminished power chord in the final bar use your second finger on the first fret of the bottom “E” string.

Since U Been Gone (Kelly Clarkson)

Inverted Power Chords

Inverted power chords are formed by placing the fifth of the chord on top of the root making the fifth note of the chord the first note to be played. For instance, an F5 inverted power chord could be played with the root note “F” on the third fret of the “D” string and the fifth note “C” on the third fret of the “A” string. The “F” inverted power chord is illustrated below:

The most famous riff of all time Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple utilizes inverted power chords. Use one finger to barre both notes as appose to two as this will make changes quicker and easier. Watch out for the rests making sure you completely kill the sound. Ritchie Blackmore played the riff with his thumb and first finger while Steve Morse used a pick to give the riff a tougher sound, so perhaps experiment and find what works for you.

Smoke on the Water (Deep Purple)

To give inverted power chords a fuller sound you can add the octave of both the root and the fifth. This is demonstrated in the intro to The Wind Cries Mary by Jimi Hendrix.

To play the power chords use your first finger to bar the “E” and “A” strings and your third finger to bar the “D” and “G” strings. In the second bar use your first finger to bar the eighth fret and hammer on with you third finger.

The Wind Cries Mary (Jimi Hendrix)

I hope this article has been of interest. If you are interested in rhythm guitar and power chords and would like to study the subject further the Troy Stetina Metal Rhythm Guitar Series is a good place to start.

Also check out… Three’s A Crowd – Part 1

This is a nice sounding song, which is easy to play, save for one chord change that may take a little extra time and effort. Oh Pretty Woman can be played at a comfortable pace and still sound good. Don’t worry about playing at full speed with the original recording – that will come in time with practice. The real fun part of learning this song is you will be able to play along with the original and it will sound right.

First, I will list the necessary chords to play this song and then I will describe each part in the order that it is played to try and make things easier. Try to relax during chord switching. Speed will come with repeated practice and being tense won’t help make changing chords easier. It’s important to take your time starting out. If you have trouble making a chord change, take a step back and practice that chord change back and forth in relaxation and without frustration and you WILL master it. Most of the chords in this song will be used in so many other songs that playing this song will help you so much down the road with those other songs.

Oh Pretty Woman has two very easy riffs, followed by the main body of the song, a bridge/chorus, that I will break down into two halves, and then the end of the song. The riffs are played here and there throughout the song to keep it fun.

These are the chords for the main part of the song….A, F#m, D and E7.

For the second half of the bridge, you’ll also need an A7:

Riff 1 : This is how the song begins. You will play this twice, and remember that the second time is the start of the third measure, so you’ll have to wait for it.

6th string (low E) – play it open twice. Then play it one more time fretted on the 4th fret with your ring finger (G#).
5th string (A) – play it fretted on the 2nd fret with your index finger (B).
4th string (D) – play it once open.

You can also play the fifth fret of the A string, rather than the open D string.

Riff 2 : You will play this four times after you play Riff 1. It is the same riff as “Riff 1″ with only three more notes added to the 4th (D) string, so this is easy!

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Begin exactly as you would for Riff 1 but after you play the open D string play it again fretted on the 4th fret (F#) with your ring finger, then again fretted on the second fret (E) with your index finger, then one more time on the 4th (D) string open and that is the entire riff and beginning of the song. As you did with “Riff 1,” you can also play the D note at the fifth fret of the A string instead of using the open D.

Then we move onto the song itself. The strumming pattern throughout the entire song will be the same. The change and sound of the chords will make it sound different and more uplifting during the bridge/chorus combined with only a slightly faster pace.

Here is the strumming pattern. It’s a quite common pattern you’ll find on a lot of songs, such as the Beatles’ Nowhere Man

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When going up, be sure to only hit the top two or three strings (G, B, high E).

When going from the A chord to the F#m, you may feel you need more time to get into this chord. To help here, you can strum an extra short down and up stroke on the bottom few strings to buy yourself more time. You do have time for this and can play it with the song later on if you like the habit. I still do this and I do not fall behind playing along with the song.

Another thing you can do here is substitute F#m7 for F#m:

This won’t sound exactly the same but, as you will hear when you try it, it’s close enough that most folks won’t know the difference. Beginners find using F#m7 easier than switching to a barre chord.

Something to note about chord switching in this song – if you try to start a verse at the beginning of a chord, it may sound “choppy” to you. I found that the song plays a new chord on the second word or syllable of a verse more fluently. For example in the first verses, I don’t play the A on the word “pretty” but rather on “woman.” I start the F#m on the word ‘down’. This is because “woman” and “down” fall on the first beat of a measure while “pretty” and “walking” actually fall on the fourth beat of the previous measure.

I thought this worth mentioning because I had a tough time fitting the lyrics to the music properly at first. One final note – in the verses the D chord is actually a measure and a half in duration. That’s six beats on the D before going to E7.

**(Here you will continue strumming to finish the verse)
**Play Riff 2 4 times. Add the word “Mercy” after the first time.

**(Here you will continue strumming to finish the verse)
**Play Riff 2 4 more times. (Feel free to ” growl ” after the first time!)
*Here is the first half of the bridge/chorus:

**Play your strumming pattern completely twice here, the second time with no lyrics.

(There is a slight change in the strumming pattern in this verse. Just go with what feels right and fit it to the words as bet you can for now)

**(You will also need to change the strumming here to fit the words with what feels best for you)
**Play Riff 2 4 times.

(*From this point on, we are strumming the E7 continuously)

*Begin Riff 2 with the beginning of this verse and continue playing it throughout the rest of the lyrics.

*With the last word in this verse we form an A chord, give it a very short strum and silence the strings immediately afterwards to end the song.

The extra note in a major chord is the 3rd note from the major scale and the extra note in minor chord is the 3rd note from the minor scale. Below demonstrates the construction of these different chords:

The third note in a chord dictates whether it is major or minor. Because a power chord has no third, it is therefore neither major nor minor. This gives the chord its raw and powerful characteristics.

The late Link Wray (1929 – 2005) is credited for inventing power chords. He found that when adding distortion to a major or minor chord a dissonant sound was produced, by removing the 3rd the dissonance was lost with the chord still maintaining its diatonic functionality.

Below are the two most popular shapes for playing power chords:

The note your first finger is on names the chord. If you played the 6th string root shape on the first fret it would be an F5 because your first finger would be on an F. In order to move the shape and play different chords we need to know all of the notes down the 6th string:

And the 5th string:

Below are sets of exercises that consolidate all the information covered so far and assist in improving orientation along the two strings.

Start by trying all the exercises on the 6th string. As soon as there is little hesitation when changing from chord to chord try the exercises on the 5th string.

With the shapes learnt and the strings explored its time to put everything together. Below are some songs using Power chords, hopefully something for everyone.

Power chords are usually played with down strokes, this helps co-ordination making it easier to strike just three strings, it keeps the right hand in the same position allowing it to be used to mute unwanted strings or apply palm muting.

Brain Stew (Green Day)

Lithium (Nirvana)

Song 2 (Blur)

All The Small Things (Blink 182)

All Day And All Of The Night (The Kinks)

I hope this article has been of interest. There is a lot here to get your head around so take it slowly, just by knowing how the notes progress up a string (remembering that E and B do not have sharps) it is now possible to work out any note on the guitar. And that’s something many players cannot do!

Also check out… Three’s A Crowd – Part 2

Power Chords and Double Stops

Doesn’t the term “power chords” sound impressive? Power chords and double stops are a simple idea – play 2 strings at the same time. They are also one of the best ways for a beginning player to make a powerful sound. Here are 3 examples – the good, the bad, and the peculiar:

When I started learning guitar, I spent weeks practicing single note scales. One fateful night, I decided to play 2 strings at once (the “good” one from above). The resulting sound convinced me that playing the guitar was for me – it sounded so powerful and I did it by accident. The “bad” one sounds really dreadful. If you want to know why, you should check out this article, A Study On Intervals , by Jimmy Hudson. The “peculiar” one is actually playing an “A” note on two different strings. If you want something extra peculiar, try adding another “A” note on the 4th string (D) at the 7th fret and then give all 3 strings a good yank. This sound has been known to give small children nightmares so be careful where you play it.

This series of double stops tells the whole world that you are ending whatever you were playing:

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Before You Accuse Me by David Hodge shows how to use double stops in a blues shuffle.

Scales can be fun

Some people have the idea that scales are no fun. As I mentioned in my first article, I started to learn guitar by practicing scales. It was a thrill to hear pleasant sounds coming from the guitar so I spend a lot of time investigating what I can do with scales. I read that lots of blues and rock songs use minor pentatonic scales and that the mixolydian scale is a very “bluesy” scale so I started off with these two. This is what they look like:

Let’s see what we can do with the minor pentatonic scale. I like to play around the 5th Fret but you can do this anywhere on the guitar. Look at the minor pentatonic scale picture, above, and fret any two notes on adjacent strings and play both strings with your pick. Then, find another two notes and play them. Remember the ones that sound good and in no time at all, you’ll have something like this:

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I have been fooling with this scale for 10 months and I’m still discovering new things.

Here are some interesting single note riffs I discovered while working with these scales. This one, played with the right rhythm, sounds like the guitar is actually talking to you (spooky!).

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When I discovered the following riff, I had to eventually force my fingers to stop playing it – it sounds so sweet. It takes place entirely within the A Mixolydian scale:

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I accidentally discovered the main riff of the Fats Domino song, I Want to Walk you Home while playing the A Mixolydian scale – like this:

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You might notice that a lot of the notes have little dots. This was the only way I could figure out how to make the riff sound right. If you want to find out more about reading music, I found this article, Timing is Everything, by David Hodge quite helpful.

If you want more information about scales, check out this article by David Hodge, Scaling the Heights. A Mixolydian Scale Blues Guitar Riff, by Darrin Koltow, shows how to use the mixolydian scale to play a blues song.

Changing chords

When you’re struggling to smoothly change chords between a C, F, and G, its easy to forget that the reason you change chords is because it sounds nice. There are 3 chords that seem to be specially made so you can switch chords easily. Here they are:

One of my favourite things is to start strumming and changing chords to see where my fingers take me. Its not always necessary to play other people’s songs. Make up one of your own. If you make up your own song, you can build in dramatic pauses that give you time to change chords – like this:

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Remember, you don’t have to play all 6 strings. Try experimenting with a full chord alternating with single notes. The easy song for beginners, Fire shows a really cool way to do this. Many interesting articles about chords can be found at Guitar Noise. The Power of Three by David Hodge is a “must-read”.

Mannish Boy

I found a riff in the style of Mannish Boy by Muddy Waters that is really easy to play. This is the only thing that you need to learn:

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You can perform the entire song by playing this riff, followed by a line of lyrics. You don’t even have to remember the lyrics because you can make up your own. For example,

I’m a man (play the riff)
A computer programming man (riff)
Way past 21 (riff)
Way past 41 (riff)
Uh huh, Uh huh (riff)

You could continue forever. By the way, Muddy Waters (and the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix) have way more complicated versions of this song.

Contest

To wrap things up, here is the intro from an obscure Canadian song from the early 1970’s. Its great fun to play. You can still get a good sound by just playing the notes on the 6th string (Low E). Anybody who emails me with the song title by December 31, 2005 will win a prize that will be delivered by return email.

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Thanks for listening
Allan Abbott

P.S. At the bottom of most Guitar Noise pages, you’ll find a link that lets you donate money to Guitar Noise. If you’re like me, a lot of your guitar knowledge came from this site so use the link. You’ll feel better – guaranteed.

In this lesson, you will learn some guitar riffs to such Black Sabbath songs as: Iron Man, The Wizard, Paranoid, and Sweet Leaf. Before we get to the riffs, I first want to explain some similarities with these riffs. Every riff we are learning uses power chords. I am sure many of you know what these are, but for those who don’t yet, they are moveable fingerings that consist of 2 notes played at the same time. Technically, they are not actually chords, because the definition of a chord is three or more notes ringing at the same time. However, this is the name they are commonly known as.

Take a look at these chord shapes below:

These chords are played with the first (index) and third (ring) fingers. Remember to mute the strings that have an “X” on them. The cool thing about power chords is as long as you keep the same fingering or “shape,” then you can move them anywhere on the guitar.

Another similarity that Paranoid and The Wizard have is the use of the pentatonic minor scale. These riffs use not only power chords, but also single notes that come from this scale. Play this scale, one note at a time, starting on the top string (left side). Be sure to use the correct fingering.

Now that you have an idea where the chords and notes to the riffs come from, lets take a look at the main riff to Iron Man. With this riff, take the power chord built off the 6 th string and move it to the specified locations.

The next riff to look at is Sweet Leaf. This riff uses power chords built on both the 6 th and 5 th strings.

Now we have two riffs that combine power chords and single notes found in the pentatonic minor scale. For the riff in Paranoid , the scale starting point will be the 12 th fret.

Finally, we have the main riff from The Wizard. This also combines power chords and single notes. This time, the starting point of the pentatonic scale will be the 5 th fret.

As you can see, there are always patterns and common elements found in music. It helps to identify these to be able to see the big picture when learning guitar. That way, notes found in songs will not seem randomly placed.

See if you can take this knowledge and compare some other song riffs you already know. Do any of the riffs use the power chord shapes or do any single note lines fall in the pentatonic minor scale?

Later.

Click here to hear the MP3.

Click here to hear the MIDI file.

You’ll find the Power Tab file (for Windows users only) here.

(More info on the free Power Tab at http://power-tab.net)

We’ve actually used three different Mixolydian scales here: the A Mixolydian, the D Mixolydian, and the E Mixolydian. Notice how the notes in each Mixolydian scale contain the arpeggios, or chord tones, for chords in the A blues. For example, the first measure would be an A7, if you were playing chords.

So, the arpeggio notes for A7 are A, C#, E, and G. Now look at the notes in the Mixolydian scale for that measure: A, B, C#, D, E, F#, and G. All the arpeggio notes are here on the strong beats, which are beats one and four. The non-chord tones are on the weak beats. These non-chord tones or notes are called passing tones.

Noticing whether a note falls on the strong or the weak beats is important, because it deeply affects the music.

When you make riffs with the A Mixolydian scale, you want to make sure the strong beats tend to use the notes A, C#, E, and G — the tones of the A7 chord. If the passing tones from the A Mixolydian scale fall on the strong beats, your playing won’t sound like the blues.

Where Does the Mixolydian Scale Come from?

Once you recognize that the A Mixolydian scale is really just an A7 arpeggio with some passing tones installed between the chord tones, you can rephrase your question to this: what scale do I find the A7 chord in? Answer: the D major scale. Compare the D major scale to the A Mixolydian scale:

Notes in D major: D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#
Notes in A Mixolydian: A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G

Notice that the notes in each of these groups are the same. The difference is that each group starts and ends on a different note.

A Mixolydian scale has the same notes as a major scale. The only difference is you’re starting from the fifth degree of the scale instead of the first.

The Mixolydian scale is an example of a mode. Note how close this term is to the term “mood.” That’s not a coincidence: Different modes produce different moods. The Mixolydian mode is a good way for inducing a bluesey kind of mood, which you saw and heard in this exercise.

Other Places to use Mixolydian

You don’t have to be restricted to using the Mixolydian just for blues playing. You can generally use a Mixolydian scale any place where you can use the dominant 7th chord that’s based on the Mixolydian.

For example, let’s say you’re playing this mini-progression: A, G, and D. All of these chords are in the key of D major. What dominant 7th chord goes with the key of D major? Yes, A7. So you can play an A Mixolydian scale on top of this progression.

If you’re instead working with the chords E, D, and A, which are all in the key of A major, you can use notes from the E7 chord, or E Mixolydian, for playing over the changes. You can do this because E7 is the dominant 7 chord in A major, and E Mixolydian is the mode or scale that emphasizes the E7 chord tones.

The music of the 90s, particularly the first half, has always struck me the hardest. I’d sing it loud in the car, the shower, at work, wherever I was and these were naturally the first songs I learned on guitar. And just as Paul couldn’t go without posting 80s riffs (Easy Guitar Riffs of the 80s), I must do the 90s.

While many guitarists complain about the lack of solos in 90s alternative rock, they contain many intense and memorable riffs. These songs have become essential to any guitarist’s playing library.

NOTE: Many of these songs are actually played with the guitar tuned a half step down. To sound like the recorded version, you may want to try this.

Nirvana is the band for all beginning guitarists. Kurt Cobain put high doses of emotion into his playing, and kept everything simple and straightforward. The first riff I ever learned to play was the intro bass riff in Come As You Are. Only slightly more difficult is the band’s first smash hit.

Weezer found themselves the spotlight early in 90s with their first self-titled album, now known as the Blue Album. Their songs were sincere and humorous glimpses into their average lives. Their second album, Pinkerton, didn’t do as well on the charts, but gave Weezer an almost cult following. This is probably Weezer’s first hit.

Punk rock’s own illegitimate children, Blink 182, have been shunned by their punk fathers, though their style obviously came from that genre. Blink 182 made punk popular (much to the dismay of punk) without ever playing all six strings at the same time. Their best album, in my opinion, is Dude Ranch. It is filled with quirky lines about girls, getting drunk, and masturbating. Dammit is from that album.

The rapper Everlast stopped jumping around and did some solo work. Formerly in the House of Pain, he picked up a guitar. He played rhythm under rock legend Santana for one excellent song, but not before releasing his own album.

Originally known for hard and fast metal with plenty of social outrage, Incubus started to, as David Hodge puts it, “genre dance” (Do You Genre Dance?) While the band switched from their metal style on S.C.I.E.N.C.E. to their much softer and slightly hip hop style on Make Yourself they threw in this little number. It’s chock full of fun bends. You’ll need to listen closely to the original to get it right.

What guitarist can get away without knowing a little bit of Dave Matthews? My roommate in college learned to play Crash flawlessly in about 2 hours… without ever picking up a guitar before in his life. It took me a little bit longer. (Another fun thing about this song: If you only play the bass notes it’s the same melody as a clock chimes before each hour.)

This Smashing Pumpkins riff is quick, easy and beautiful. I also have spotted many errors in guitars I would have bought with this song. That’s always appreciated.

Throughout the 90s, Live has stayed fairly low and yet always has been a presence. With mild success in the album Mental Jewelry, they hit the mainstream with Throwing Copper and the hit song Lightning Crashes.

Lastly, the Chili Peppers. At the peak of their long (and at this moment, on going) career in the music industry, the Red Hot Chili Peppers brought us Under the Bridge. This song is right on the coattails of Stairway to Heaven to become the intro most often played by novices in music stores. And what a great intro it is!

Put a capo on the second fret to play it, and once you have enough practice you can try it without the capo. Enjoy!

Also check out… Easy Guitar Riffs and Easy Guitar Riffs of the 80s

Some things get better with age. Old sneakers, a well worn pair of jeans, classic cars, art, cheese, and sometimes even music. Oldies, retro, classic rock – whatever you call the music that you are nostalgic for – it is likely to be a perennial favourite. Whatever can be recycled and resold eventually will be. And history will always repeat itself.

After my first lesson on easy guitar riffs I felt like I had left something unfinished. It seemed as if I had written something more about music history than playing guitar. References to contemporary music had been neglected. And while there have been a lot of great and memorable rock riffs in the past decade, it only seems right that I should address the question how did we get where we are. So before we explore some contemporary guitar riffs I want to go back to the eighties.

When I started to search for memorable riffs from the eighties not many came to mind. Not at first anyway. But once I managed to forget about Culture Club, Duran Duran, Phil Collins, Lionel Ritchie and all the pop music that seemed to dominate, the rock riffs came back to me. And I only needed my guitar in hand for a few minutes before I was able to figure out the following selection of riffs.

Any look at the music of the eighties is probably going to dwell on bands that didn’t survive. It was a decade where pop music and fashion thrived. Nowhere is the excess of this culture captured better than the album Kick by INXS. The catchy pop songs they produced included some simple riffs such as New Sensation and Devil Inside.

Also notable is the four note riff that follows the chorus in Never Tear Us Apart. It is so simple, yet anyone who has heard the album, or better yet, INXS’ live album from Wembley Stadium knows the power and resonance these simple notes hold.

The 80s could very well be the decade of the sell-out. Groups like Genesis and Yes, once known for writing long progressive rock epics, began turning out radio friendly 3 or 4 minute songs. In 1983 Yes released the album 90125 and earned a new fan base thanks to the riff driven hit Owner of A Lonely Heart.

Ever seen the Sean Penn movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High? It was before he married Madonna. If you don’t know what I’m talking about read on. In this movie they have a few jokes about Pat Benatar look alikes. If you don’t know what Pat Benatar looks like forget about it. But, she is famous for a song I can only describe as ultimate eighties. In 1980 she became an overnight star thanks to her album Crimes of Passion and the song Hit Me With Your Best Shot, a basic song with a riff comprised entirely of power chords.

While Sting was still a member of The Police he consistently turned out good hit songs. Perhaps his biggest hit of the 80s was Every Breath You Take. This song was given a new life a few years ago thanks to a cover by Puff Daddy. It is a rather difficult song to master for physical reasons alone. You are required to stretch your left hand across 5 frets. To sound like the recording you should also subtly apply some palm muting.

Are you ready for something a little heavier? One of many formerly-famous heavy metal groups is the German band Scorpions. While many may remember them for their emotional ballad Wind of Change, you may want to take a look at some of their older material. Check out their live album World Wide Live. On it you will find, The Zoo.

Here’s a song you may wish you didn’t know. It is My Sharona by The Knack. The opening riff simply consists of G octaves. It’s a little embarrassing actually.

OK, here is another ultimate eighties hit. Not at all a rock riff but I couldn’t resist including it. It comes from the album Thriller by Michael Jackson. While Beat It may not be your cup of tea it does have a pretty decent guitar solo. Can you guess who played it? I’ll give you a clue, it is someone else mentioned in this lesson.

Remember Bryan Adams? Of course you do. He is one of the few people here that is still making music that people know about. He was a bit more of a rocker back in 1984 when he released Reckless. Run To You is an example of another simple yet effective riff.

I can not talk about 80s guitar without mentioning Van Halen. While any one of their David Lee Roth era songs could contain a memorable riff (DLR another 80s icon), let’s look at something from his last album with the band 1984. As one reviewer wrote, this is where the band really reached their highest potential. Though Van Halen riffs are usually more than a handful for the beginner, I thought I’d include at least one.

It was 1987 when Guns n Roses came out with Appetite for Destruction, an album which popularized hard rock riffs again. The band was a musical sign of the times, symbolizing a lot of what was to follow. Sweet Child ‘O Mine is another rather simple riff. To play like the original you will need to tune all your strings down a half step.

If you would like me to teach some specific riffs in a future lesson you can email requests to me.

Keep riffin’.

Also check out… Easy Guitar Riffs and Guitar Riffs of the 90s

My fascination with guitar riffs goes back a long way. I was still only playing the air-guitar and washing dishes in a restaurant when I ordered a tape from TV called “Guitar Rock.” It was a riff-laden collection of sixties and seventies guitar tunes. It really smoked on that back kitchen tape player. Around the time I gave up my job washing dishes I also gave up my air-guitar for a real guitar. In my mind I could still hear all those Guitar Rock tunes calling me. There was Smoke on the Water, All Right Now, Layla, Purple Haze, and so many more.

It was an early and pleasant surprise as a guitarist to find that many of these songs were some of the easiest ones to play. They were a great starting point for me as a beginner because I developed a repertoire of recognizable and popular songs in a short time. With this lesson I hope they can do the same for your playing as they did for mine.

The great thing about rock guitar riffs is that once you learn them you can amaze your friends. Everyone can recognize and appreciate a good riff if you play it right. Also, playing riffs takes a detour around learning to play an entire song, which can be a daunting and sometimes impossible task for a beginner who is probably playing by him or herself. Fortunately, some of the most recognizable guitar riffs of all time are also the easiest ones to play. Here are some catchy rock riffs straight from “Guitar Rock.” Every rock guitarist should have these songs in their repertoire.

Smoke on the Water – Deep Purple (1972)

Layla – Derek and the Dominoes (1970)

Aqualung – Jethro Tull (1971)

Heartbreaker – Led Zeppelin (1969)

Whole Lotta Love – Led Zeppelin (1969)

Iron Man – Black Sabbath (1970)

Paranoid – Black Sabbath (1970)

Sweet Emotion – Aerosmith (1975)

All Right Now – Free (1970)

Purple Haze – Jimi Hendrix (1967)

Where to go from here

Once you have a large catalog of riffs you can play I recommend you start trying to come up with some of your own. Who knows, maybe you will be responsible for the next Takin’ Care of Business or Satisfaction. You will find some guidance in terms of writing songs using riffs in David Hodge’s column “A” Before “E” (Except After “C”). Here is a sample of what David has to say:

Most songwriters tend write the music first, either by coming up with a riff or chord progression or by harmonizing a melody. A-J discusses creating chord patterns in his latest article (A Simple Song). Riffs tend to follow the same idea, which makes sense because a riff is simply a pattern of notes (usually) derived from a chord or a scale within a given key. Some “riff” songs consist of the same riff played repeatedly over changing chords. Eminence Front by the Who or Blue Oyster Cult’s (Don’t Fear) The Reaper are examples of this style of writing.

Another method of “riff writing” is to come up with a cool riff and then transpose the notes to fit the chord changes. This is nowhere near as complicated as it sounds. Let’s look at the Beatles’ Day Tripper as an example (and I’ve copied this version straight from the Guitar Tab site). You can see (or hear) that riff two is exactly the same as riff one except that riff two is played in A while riff one is played in E.

Day Tripper – Beatles (1965)

If you are interested in learning more about riffs you can read the entire lesson A Before E (except after C).

If you are looking for help on the subject of writing songs there is more than enough information on the songwriting page.

You have probably noticed that many of the riffs shown here are from the late sixties and early seventies. If you would like to see a lesson on riffs from more recent years just let me know which riffs you would like to learn.

Also check out… Easy Guitar Riffs of the 80s and Guitar Riffs of the 90s

Now, I’ve never been a whiz with computers (and remember we’re talking about a time when pockets calculators were just coming out for two to three hundred dollars apiece!) but I’ve always been lucky enough to have friends who were incredibly computer literate.

With the assistance of one such friend I came up with a “song writing” program. Here’s how it worked . I wrote out every chord I could play and randomly assigned it a number by pulling it out of a hat. My friend then ran a “random number” generating program (going only as high as the number of chords I had) which rounded the random numbers into whole numbers. He’d run out a string of them and I’d “decode” the numbers back into chords and play them in the sequence dictated by the computer.

It had some winners, I will tell you that. I got two chord changes that I might never have come up with on my own (especially at the point in my musical life). But nine out of ten times it sounded positively dreadful. And I’m being really polite with this description.

Major Progress

What makes a chord transition “good?” Why are some transitions almost automatic, for lack of a better word? Why is C to G pleasant to the ear while C to Eb minor is worse than fingernails on chalk?

You may find this hard to believe, but a lot of the “science” behind harmony is mere convention. As I’ve stated before, the “theory” in music theory is simply the examination of what has gone on before. Therefore, much of what is a “good” chord transition is the result of centuries of familiarity. If you had been raised on some planet where, oh I don’t know, the augmented fourth was considered good form then it would not seem as jarring an interval as it does to most earthlings.

Add to this the notion that our harmonic conditioning undoubtedly springs from singing. Think about it, people had voices long before they had instruments. When our ancestors first began singing together, what made them feel certain notes went well together and some brought down the wrath of the gods? I can imagine two cave people coaching each other . “No, no Thag. If Og sings the root, you must chant the sixth, okay?”

Be that as it may, we have inherited quite a few guidelines as to what chords work well together. The following is a chart taught to first year theory students. And as always, I must implore you to remember that this is not a be all and end all guide. Chord changes that people may have found harsh in the past might now be the “in thing.” Progressions that we perhaps find trite will possible rule the radio tomorrow (it’s an incredibly easy thing to change “stale” into “style”).

Anyway, here goes. In a major key, the general rule of thumb regarding chord progression would be as follows:

Okay, note yet again that I am ignoring the seventh chord position. Don’t worry. It’s coming up next time.

Now, these charts are all fine and dandy, but I prefer to see things in terms of actual day to day use rather than all the Roman numeral stuff. Let’s look at the keys of C major and G major, shall we?

Some of you will no doubt notice two things about these charts: first that they pretty much confirm the things that A-J Charron has written about in A Simple Song. Secondly, that these progression charts will also help cut out a lot of the guesswork when you’re trying to figure out a song on your own! Consider it an added (albeit late) bonus for getting through these three columns: Happy New Ear, Unearthing The Structure, Solving The Puzzle.

Riff Raff

The important thing to remember about coming up with chord progressions is that everything has been done before. You cannot worry about the fact that your song’s chords are not incredibly different from someone else’s. You will be better off spending your energy learning more chords and learning how to use chords to suit the mood of your songs.

Learning more chords is a no-brainer. But again, there are only so many different chords. This is why it’s important to learn different voicings of chords (Multiple Personality Disorder) as well as different tunings for your guitar (Open Tuning Part I). A new voicing can make an old progression sound fresh.

As for learning how to use chords to suit your songs, first let’s take a quick look at how people write songs (hey, by now you should know I can never approach anything in a straight forward manner . chalk it up to being a Cancer.). Of course, we’re talking about the “music” part of the song. Most songwriters tend write the music first, either by coming up with a riff or chord progression or by harmonizing a melody. A-J discusses creating chord patterns in his latest article. Riffs tend to follow the same idea, which makes sense because a riff is simply a pattern of notes (usually) derived from a chord or a scale within a given key. Some “riff” songs consist of the same riff played repeatedly over changing chords. Eminence Front by the Who or Blue Oyster Cult’s (Don’t Fear) The Reaper are examples of this style of writing.

Another method of “riff writing” is to come up with a cool riff and then transpose the notes to fit the chord changes. This is nowhere near as complicated as it sounds. Let’s look at the Beatles‘ Day Tripper as an example (and I’ve copied this version straight from the Guitar Tab site). You can see (or hear) that riff two is exactly the same as riff one except that riff two is played in A while riff one is played in E.

(Oh, yeah, the disclaimer:

This file is the author’s own work and represents his interpretation of the song. It is intended solely for private study, scholarship or research.

Okay. Onward!):

If you don’t buy into the riffs being the same, simply write out the notes and then transform them into their Roman numeral equivalents for the respective keys. I’ll do it for riff one and you do riff two if you don’t believe me.

Picking A Color

At some point we all find ourselves whistling a tune that we’re concocting on the spot. Some of us might think, “Hey, this is a cool song,” and set it out but then realize we have no idea of what chords to play with it. Sound familiar to anyone?

To demonstrate how different chord progressions can drastically affect the tone of a melody, I’ve some up with a short and simple melody (and I’ve also provided the guitar TAB for those of you who may not read music)(and yes, you should definitely learn to do so):

When I say “short and simple,” I don’t kid around. Now even though I didn’t put in any key signature (sharps or flats), I’m going to use the first note as my root and play some chords in the key of G major. I’m also going to start out very plain, using just the I, IV and V chords (G, C and D (or D7 in this case in order to emphasize the C note in the melody)). And to keep things easy, I’m changing the chord each measure, using whichever of my three chords contains the note or notes in that particular measure. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

Now if you play the accompaniment while singing or humming the melody you will find that this sounds like a pretty traditional song. Not very hard, was it?

I’d like to use this example to point out something important . namely that it is fairly important to establish a sense of “home,” a feeling of what key the song is in. Playing the G first and coming back to it every other measure certainly fixes it in the listener’s ear, but the thing that really pegs the key of G is the ending, the D7 to G finale. Nothing cements the sense of key as well as a chord shift from V (better still V7) to I. Even a song like Hey Joe, (the Billy Roberts song best known via Jimi Hendrix) that seemingly wanders around aimlessly, takes the time in the introduction to establish itself in the key of E so that when it finally gets back to the E chord, one has a sense of resolution (there will be an in-depth look at this song next time out).

In this second harmonization of my melody, I decide that I will try out the key of C. this is not too hard a choice to make seeing that my melody has neither sharps nor flats. You can see that I’ve used a broader brush, if you will, incorporating many more of the chords available to me in the C major scale. You will also note that the B in the first measure has become a passing tone since it is not part of the C chord that I am using for that measure:

I don’t know about you, but this particular accompaniment feels incomplete to me. Maybe it’s having the G note as the final note, I don’t know. I like it, though. It might work out better as a part of something else. This is how people end up with “pieces” of songs. It’s hard and unsatisfying to explain to someone that a lot of songwriting is “just a feeling” but it is. You know when something works. You definitely know when it doesn’t.

I really go for broke in the third example, first by setting the melody in E minor and then changing the chords with every different note (again picking a chord that contains the melodic note) and tossing in everything but the kitchen sink:

Notice that by establishing the E minor right at the outset and then finishing off with a B7 to E minor really does give us a sense of key. Also notice that even though I use a C to start the second measure and a G to start the fifth measure, just like I did in the first example, the overall tone of this accompaniment is completely different. At certain points I actually worked backwards. As stated, I had decided to use the C to start measure two and I really liked the D in measure three, so how to get from one to the other? Since my melody note between the C and D was E (and that I wanted for the sake of the exercise to use a chord that contains that note), I had a number of choices: C again (no way!), E minor (but I’d already used it and I figured that there might be something a bit more interesting), A minor, which worked and in fact led me to A major and then to A7.

Patchwork Writing

More often than not, and certainly without meaning to, I tend to write songs using a combination of these methods. I may have a chord pattern that I really like for the verses but I’d like to change it around a bit for the chorus. I would then write out the melody and see what chords can be used as feasible substitutes. Often it might mean replacing a major chord with its relative minor. Or using a major seventh. Or sometimes a chord from out of nowhere (kind of like that Bb chord we found in the chorus of John Lennon’s Jealous Guy in Solving The Puzzle).

In reverse, I might have a melody that I really like and then found some chords I think go well with the melody, but I feel a different chord voicing might give the song more of whatever it lacks. Perhaps I might try to come up with a riff that will serve just as well as a strummed chord.

Most songwriters will tell you that even when they have finished a song, it’s not really finished. Somewhere down the road you may learn a trick or hear someone else do something that makes you think, “I could do that in my song.” Paul Simon used to talk of hearing a woman in a coffee shop performing a version of Homeward Bound that he liked so much he used it himself. Hey, it’s his song.

Ultimately what you write is up to you. But the more you know why certain progressions work and certain ones don’t the better chance you stand of liking what you’ve written. By now you know that I’m a firm believer of what I call the “learning more than you need to know” philosophy. If you’re really serious about songwriting, do check out our songwriting page here at Guitar Noise. And as always, feel free to write with questions, either directly to me or on the Guitar Forums. I’m certain we’ll be revisiting the theory involved in writing fairly often in the future.