Welcome back! today I wanna share with you some wisdom on classic rock guitar riffs.
This first riff I wanna share with you is very AC/DC inspired. It’s the classic riff that uses open
chords, the most basic ones, and combines them with single notes. Oftentimes anticipation is
applied to make the whole progression sound better. Let’s check it out:
It definitely reminds me of Highway to Hell by AC/DC. Great song; if you haven’t listened to it
yet, go and check it out now. Pure inspiration to every guitar player out there.
The second one I wanna share with you is an early 90’s / late 80’s inspired riff. This type of riff is
most likely a combination of single notes. Most of the time it’s based on the pentatonic scale
and adds passing tones in between. Oftentimes, the entire riff is played with a palm mute
technique. Let’s check out this awesome riff:
This one reminds of Paradise City by Guns N’ Roses. Though it is not exactly the same riff at all,
the vibe, the grove is very similar. It’s the idea of single notes with a muted feeling that just
sounds a bit like GNR.
The third and last riff I wanna show you is more modern. I would totally hear this type of riff in a
Rage Against The Machine track or in a Red Hot Chili Peppers Intro. Grab a telecaster, set the
neck pickup on, and turn up the tube distortion in your amp, well.. what else can I say? those
settings by itself will sound amazing, specially with the following riff:
I mean the E7#9, which is the only chord in the riff, was very used lately by Tom Morello and
other modern guitar players. Of course Jimi Hendrix was the pioneer of all this music and
chords. Let’s never forget about Jimi! The master. One thing about this last riff is that you could
play downstrokes all the way through or combine upstrokes and downstrokes.
Well that’s all for this lesson I hope you enjoyed it and please remember to check out our entire
database of lessons at:
It definitely reminds me of Highway to Hell by AC/DC. Great song; if you haven’t listened to it
yet, go and check it out now. Pure inspiration to every guitar player out there.
The second one I wanna share with you is an early 90’s / late 80’s inspired riff. This type of riff is
most likely a combination of single notes. Most of the time it’s based on the pentatonic scale
and adds passing tones in between. Oftentimes, the entire riff is played with a palm mute
technique. Let’s check out this awesome riff:
This one reminds of Paradise City by Guns N’ Roses. Though it is not exactly the same riff at all,
the vibe, the grove is very similar. It’s the idea of single notes with a muted feeling that just
sounds a bit like GNR.
The third and last riff I wanna show you is more modern. I would totally hear this type of riff in a
Rage Against The Machine track or in a Red Hot Chili Peppers Intro. Grab a telecaster, set the
neck pickup on, and turn up the tube distortion in your amp, well.. what else can I say? those
settings by itself will sound amazing, specially with the following riff:
I mean the E7#9, which is the only chord in the riff, was very used lately by Tom Morello and
other modern guitar players. Of course Jimi Hendrix was the pioneer of all this music and
chords. Let’s never forget about Jimi! The master. One thing about this last riff is that you could
play downstrokes all the way through or combine upstrokes and downstrokes.
Well that’s all for this lesson I hope you enjoyed it and please remember to check out our entire
database of lessons at:
