Check out this free lesson from Guitar Control instructor Darrin Goodman on how to play three fun & easy guitar riffs by Boston. Be sure to get the free tabs to go with the step by step video instructions and you will be rockin’ these killer riffs tonight!
Introduction
How’s it going everybody? This is Darrin with GuitarControl.com bringing you this video lesson and today I’ve got three cool easy riffs for you from Boston.
Right now Guitar Control has a free ebook, 30 powerful and useful open chords, and it’s free to download; there’s a link down in the description.
So be sure to click on the link in the description for the tabs and let’s get close up and take a look at these.
Boston Riff-1 – More Than A Feeling
All right so the first one we’re going to look at is More Than A Feeling. So this one here we just have a regular old D chord and we’re going to start this with the D string to the B string; one, and. And then for the downbeat of two we hit the G string; one and, two, and then on the and of two we’re gonna take our pinky and we’re going to put it down onto the third fret of the high E and keep everything else the same and this is D suspended four (Dsus4) and we’re going to hit this on the and of two, but it’s a quarter note, so it’s tied to the downbeat of three and then on the and of three we just take our pinky off and we go back. So now we’re back on the second fret and then the downbeat of four is the B string and then the and four is the G string, but you want to take your first finger off so it’s open… All right so that’s the first measure and then for the second measure we go to a C add nine (Cadd9); so just leave your third finger where it is here on the third fret of the B string and we’re just going to bring our second finger up so we’re picking up the third fret of the A string and we’re going to play this is all eighth notes. So A string for one and then the and of one is the G string, the downbeat of two is the B string and then for the and of two we’re going to move the note on the A string from the third fret to the second fret. So just take your second finger off and use your first finger, but again going to keep your third finger here on the third fret of the B string, same timing, A, G, B and then we’re gonna put our middle finger down on the third fret of the low E string and hit the low E string on the downbeat of four and then the B string on the and of four and that’s it…
Boston Riff-2 – Piece Of Mind
All right next we’re going to look at Peace Of Mind. So we start off we’ve got a c-sharp minor (C#m) barre chord; so I’m just barring my first finger across the first five strings of the fourth fret, second finger is on the fifth fret of the B string, third finger is on the sixth fret of the D string and fourth fingers on the sixth fret of the G string. The timing on this is cool, it’s a little unusual, it’s got this kind of cool swing to it. So we hit the C#m as a quarter note for the downbeat of one and then on the downbeat of two we just release the pressure and just hit the strings so you get that percussive sound… So it’s one, two and, three and. So we come to a A major barre chord so now I’m just barring my first finger all the way across all six strings at the fifth fret, second finger is on the sixth fret of the G string, third finger is on the seventh fret of the A string and fourth finger is on the seventh fret of the D string. So if you take the shape that we did here you basically just move it all down one string and up a fret; so one two and three and, and then for beat four we’re just going to release the pressure here so it’s that muted sound and now it’s 16th notes. So it’s going to be four strums down up down up… like that. Then for measure two we’re going to go to a E major barre chord; so third finger is barring the ninth fret of the D, G and B string and your first finger is just picking up the seventh fret of the A string and for this it’s one two and then on the and of two we’re going to go to a B major barre chord. So if we just take the shape we did for A and just move it up a whole step so now you’re barring at the seventh fret and your second fingers on the eighth fret of the G string and your third fingers on the ninth fret of the A string, fourth fingers on the ninth fret of the D string and we hit that on the and of two… And that brings it’s a it’s a dotted eighth note so this is where it gets kind of weird to count. So it’s like and three e and four and, and on the and before you release the pressure again…
Boston Riff-3 – Don’t Look Back
All right so the last we’re going to look at is Don’t Look Back and this is probably the most difficult one out of these, well if you’re a beginner the barre chords in the last one probably are pretty challenging, but this one here mostly trying to not get it to sound like harmonics and I’ll explain here in just a second. So we start off we’re going to take our first finger we’re going to barre it at the 14th fret across the D, G and B string and we’re playing the A string open. So we’re going to hit this and then we’re going to do a hammer-on to the 15th fret on the B string with our second finger and then we’re going to strum that with our second ↓finger down twice and then take our middle finger off and then we have the same quick sixteenth note thing like we had on the last song… and that’s the first measure. Then we come down here to the seventh fret we’re just going to barre our first finger across the seventh fret of the D, G and B string and the A string is open and this is a quarter note so it’s like one and then on the the downbeat of two a mute and then we move it up, just scoot that shape up to the ninth fret and we hit that and then we hit it again and do a hammer-on to the 10th fret and back to nine and then the open A string and then it just starts over again… All right so the harmonic thing, normally I would just, you know, try to do with the one finger, but you have those harmonics right there and it sounds weird, so I just take my other fingers here and just lay them on there so I don’t get so much of those harmonic tones and just the muted sound…
Conclusion
All right so there you have it, three not too terribly difficult to play riffs from Boston. So if you like this lesson 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.
