Learn to play these three epic Rush riffs from Guitar Control instructor Darrin Goodman. Be sure to get the free included tabs so you can easily follow along and be rockin’ these classic riffs tonight!
Introduction
How’s it going everybody? This is Darrin with GuitarControl.com bringing you this video lesson. Today I want to show you how to play three cool and pretty easy riffs from Rush. So rush is one of my all-time favorite bands and I wanted to make sure I included them in these three riffs series. So be sure to click on the link in the description for the tabs and let’s get close up and take a look.
Rush Riff-1 Limelight
All right so the first one we’re going to look at is Limelight. So this riff doesn’t start on one and it starts actually on the and of two so you rest one and two and this first part of it here is all eighth notes; so we’ve got open low E and then like I said that’s on the end of two and then we go to the fourth fret of the low E and then the open A string and then the fourth fret of the A string and then to the second fret of the D string… All right and then following that we’ve got a B5; so I’ve got my first finger here on the second fret of the A string and then I’m picking up the fourth fret of the D and G string with my third fingers barring it like that. Now you could also do it this way and use your third finger on the D string and your fourth finger on the G string; so we’ve got that on the downbeat of one of the next measure it’s just an eighth note and then we rest on the and of one and then all of two and then on the downbeat of three we hit that chord again… and we let that ring out until the downbeat of four and then we pick up the fourth fret of the low E again and then to an A5. So the A string open and then I’m borrowing the second fret of the d and G string and that’s like half of the riff and then that repeats… Then we go on to this next part of it that is similar and it starts off the same way with the… then we go to the B5 and we hit that twice and then we have a rest and then we go to this E5 over A (E5/A). So what we’re going to do is we’re just going to take the B5 shape and we’re going to move it up a set of strings so now your first finger is on the second fret of the D string and your third finger is on the fourth fret of the G string and we’re going to play the A and B strings open and we do that one twice too; so we’ve got.. and then a rest and then we have this kind of extended E chord here and it’s like a B5 over E (B5/E). So we’ve got um first finger on the second fret of the A string and then third finger on the fourth fret of the D string, fourth finger on the fourth fret of the G string and the low E string is open and then that part repeats too… just like that.
Rush Riff-2 Red Barchetta
All right so the next one we’re going to look at is Red Barchetta. So this is just the intro riff and it’s completely done with natural harmonics, so this one’s really easy. So if you don’t know how to do a natural harmonic, what it is like here the first one is on the 12th fret of the G string. So what I’m doing is instead of actually pressing on the fret I’ve got my finger just touching the string, but instead of being between the fret wires here I’m right over the top of the fret wire for the 12th fret and then you pick that and you don’t want to just leave your finger there because then it’ll fade off so you want to lift your finger off. So we’ve got the first one here and then the seventh fret of the A string and again the same thing, I’m just touching the string right on top of the fret wire and then to the seventh fret of the D string and then follow that with the twelfth fret of the A string and that’s basically the riff. So on the first measure of that we’ve got; one two three four and then on the second measure it’s those same harmonics, but now we’ve got one two and, and then that’s tied to beat three and then before we go back to here so that’s the first two measures and then measure three and measure four are the same and then it just it repeats. So we’ve got one two three four one two and three four…
Rush Riff-3 Fly By Night
And then last but not least we have is Fly By Night and this was like I believe the very first Rush riff that I ever learned when I was a kid when I was taking lessons this one’s pretty easy. So we start off we just got a regular D chord; so D string open and I’m on the second fret of the G string with my first finger, third fret of the B string with my third finger and second fret of the high E string with my second finger. So this is like one and, and then on the down beat of two we rest and then on the and of two we strum the D again and then we let that ring out for the and of two plus all of three and then we rest on four. So it’s like… Then we have E minor seven (Em7); so we’re going to keep our fingers where they are, but you just take your first finger and move it from the second fret of the G string and move it down so it’s on the second fret of the D string and then put your pinky down onto the third fret of the high E string, same timing, so we’ve got the D… Then instead of being a rest on number four we’ve got this eighth note; so it’s the open A string four and then the and of four we go to the second fret and you just want to keep your third and fourth fingers the way we had him here… So then on the downbeat of the third measure our second finger goes to the third fret of the A string and then our second finger goes to the second fret of the D string. So we’ve got… and then we strum just the G, B and E strings together and again your third finger should be on the third fret of the B string and your fourth finger should be on the third fret of the G string… Then we go to the second fret of the A string so we move our first finger from the second fret of the D string to the second fret of the A string and we do the same thing again and pick A and D, but now the D string is open and we strum the G, B and E strings again, still with our fingers on there. So far… and then on the and of four open A string and your first finger to the first fret on the downbeat of one of the fourth measure to the open D string and strum the top end of that chord again, the G, B and high E strings. Then we have an A5; so just like the regular A5 like we did before… Then we have a G5 over A (G5/A); so we’re just going to lift these fingers off and strum just the A, D and G strings open and then back to the A5 and then that just repeats. So that whole riff really slowly…
Conclusion
All right, so there you have it. Three fun play and cool sounding riffs from Rush. Rush has such a gigantic catalog and there’s so many riffs that I will be doing more Rush riffs in this series. So if you like this video be sure to give me a thumbs up and leave a comment down below if you have any questions about this or other guitar related topics. If you’ve not already done so please subscribe to the channel and hit that notification bell so you don’t miss any of the content that we upload throughout the week. Well that is all I have for you today. Thanks for watching and have a great day.
