Welcome back! Today I wanna show you an electric guitar riff. Electric guitar riffs are the most fun thing to play on guitar. When we guitarists compose a song we most likely start off with a riff and build the song around it. One of my favorite eras for guitar riffs is the 80’s. The most iconic and legendary riffs ever created started out back then. It was
like the boom guitar riffs and distorted guitars. The first one I wanna show you is a very glam metal-inspired riff.
Whenever I play it I just imagine I’m jamming with a drummer who is banging on the cowbell! Cowbells were very popular back then, specially for the chorus of a song. Some bands that used cowbells a lot were Bon Jovi, Guns N’ Roses, Def Leppard, among others.
So anyway, this lick I am about to share with you is built using the E Minor Pentatonic scale and it combines open notes with the famous power chords! Let’s check it out:
I would suggest you play the open notes on the 6th string with a Palm Mute technique and open the power chords; by doing this you will enhance the moment in which the power chords are played and it will sound just way more powerful. Additionally, you could add vibrato to the last note or chord of the bar. If you have a whammy bar, well, there you go; use it ! The next riff I wanna show you can totally be played right after the one you just learned. I think of this new riff as a chorus part. This is definitely the part where the drummer would bring out the cowbell. Let’s check it out:
I would suggest you play the first A5 as a barre chord with your index finger; this way you will have your middle finger available to play the next note which is a “3” on the 6th string. Also, I suggest you use an alternate picking technique to play the lick at the end of 2nd and 4th bar. Alternatively, you could combine a palm-muted sound with an open sound while playing them. The chords will clearly be played without any palm mute technique.
This is all for today. I hope you’ve enjoyed this article and please remember to check out our entire database of videos.
