Welcome back! Today I want to show you one of my favorite acoustic blues riffs.
I’ve heard this type of riff in some many styles of music, from rock n’ roll to metal to funk; Blues
has definitely changed music. If I had to credit any player for the tab I’m about to show you, it
would be Keith Richards; and I don’t personally listen to The Rolling stones a lot, but somehow
it is just impossible to not get inspired by this legendary band. One way or another their songs
just influence you.
So the riff is basically built around 2 major chords. The idea is to play let’s a C (C E G) and
alternate it with a major chord a 4th above it, which in this case would an F (F A C), but keeping
the root of the first chord ( C ). So if we take this pattern we end up with something like this:
Now if we bring this pattern into a full 12bar
blues, we have a great comping riff:
What I’ve done here is transpose the riff from A, as it was originally played, to D and E. You
could swing it or just go with straight 8th notes; whatever you want. You can also transpose it to
wherever you want. Some tips for this exercise:
● For the A, play it as a barre chord; nothing else but your index finger. This way it’s going
to be so much easier when you change to the 2nd chord.
● For the D (5th measure), I would personally use my index for the 5th string and barre the
4th, 3rd and 2nd string with my pinky finger! Yup, that’s right. It works like a charm.
● When playing the muted chords (notated as “x”) I would potentially mute all the strings
with any finger from your left hand.
Well that’s all for today! I hope you enjoyed this lesson and please feel free to check out more stuff in our website:
Now if we bring this pattern into a full 12bar
blues, we have a great comping riff:
What I’ve done here is transpose the riff from A, as it was originally played, to D and E. You
could swing it or just go with straight 8th notes; whatever you want. You can also transpose it to
wherever you want. Some tips for this exercise:
● For the A, play it as a barre chord; nothing else but your index finger. This way it’s going
to be so much easier when you change to the 2nd chord.
● For the D (5th measure), I would personally use my index for the 5th string and barre the
4th, 3rd and 2nd string with my pinky finger! Yup, that’s right. It works like a charm.
● When playing the muted chords (notated as “x”) I would potentially mute all the strings
with any finger from your left hand.
Well that’s all for today! I hope you enjoyed this lesson and please feel free to check out more stuff in our website:
