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Guitar Riffs - Guitar Lessons - Riff Writing

It's easy, it's a gas, and it could be the next "Whole Lotta Love"!! Start creating your own guitar riffs now.

1. Guitar riffs are just chords, single notes, or both put together to form one core guitar part.
   A guitar riff should stand alone as a fully-formed idea.
2. The riff is probably the most memorable part of many rock songs (past or present).
3. The notes for guitar riffs are taken often from scales(another great reason to learn more scales) or chords.

"Satisfaction" and "Enter Sandman" are both razor-sharp single-note guitar riffs. The "Layla" riff combines a flurry of hammered-and-pulled single notes and power chords to fuel it's fire.

1. The notes for both of these guitar riffs were taken from the E Blues scale(open position)
2. First count and play the riffs
3. You can see in these examples how just adding a few notes makes a good riff even better
4. The palm muting and the vibrato give the riff it's attitude
5. P.M.- - - - - - - tells you to use palm muting (What's Palm Muting? Click Here)

• Practice these guitar riffs first without the practice track or metronome. START SLOW AND COUNT!!

• You should be able to repeat the riff 20 times playing with the practice track

• Change the riff and make it yours: move the palm muting, add slides, bends, hammer-ons, pull-offs

• Now try creating some of your own guitar riffs like these.

• You can try to write down your riff too. Print the Write Your Own page!