Learn to play three fun and easy guitar riffs by Head East with Guitar Control instructor Darrin Goodman, aka Uncle D. Be sure to get the free tabs to go along with the step by step video instruction and you will be rockin’ these classic Head East riffs in record time.
Introduction
How’s it going everybody? This is Darrin with GuitarControl.com bringing you this video lesson and today I’ve got three fun and easy riffs for you from Head East.
Right now Guitar Control is giving away a free chord chart and there’s a link in the description where you can download yours. It’s in PDF format and has every chord that you could ever need just at a glance all neatly compiled into one sheet. So download it, print it off, throw it in your gig bag, throw it wherever you practice and any chord you could ever need at a glance and it’s free download.
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.
Head East Riff-1 – Never Been Any Reason
All right so the first one to look at is Never Been Any Reason and this is all just made up of these power chord shapes. So the first one we got here is G5; so I’m on the third fret of the low E string with my first finger and then I’m picking up the fifth fret of the A string with my third finger and also picking up the fifth fret of the D string with my fourth finger… So it’s this shape is going to be used for all of these chords and so it’ll either be like this on the E, A and D string or they’re going to be moved up so now your first finger will be playing the notes on the A string and your third finger will be playing the D string and your fourth finger playing the G string. Now if you’re a beginner and you’re having trouble doing that you can omit the highest note, so if you’re doing the one where it’s rooted on the low E string you only need to pick up the note that’s on the A string because the one that’s on the D string is the same note; so if you’re having trouble making that stretch you could just use your first finger to play the low string and then your fourth finger to play the next string. So it’s always either going to be E and A or A and D… All right so this is all made up of eighth notes with some quarter note rests. So we start off right on the downbeat of one; so it’s one and, and then we rest two three and then we’re going to move up to the A and the D string, but down a half step. So my first finger’s on the second fret of the A string, third fingers on the fourth fret the D and fourth fingers on the fourth fret of the G string. We hit this on the downbeat of four and then we move it up a half step for and. So we’ve got one two three four and… So that’s the first measure and we hit the C5 here on the and of four and then on the second measure we hit it for beats one; so the downbeat of one on the offbeat, so we’ve got one and two three four and one and two three. Now you move back down half step again four and then all the way up to the fifth and seventh fret and one two three four then back down to the C5 again four and two or excuse me four and one and two three four and, and then it just it just repeats…
Head East Riff-2 – Love Me Tonight
All right so the next one we’re going to look at is Love Me Tonight. So for this one we’re switching over to a clean tone and we’ve got just regular old E major; so the low E string is open, I’m on the second fret of the A string with my second finger, second fret of the D string with my third finger, first fret of the G string with my first finger and the B and high E strings are open. Then we’ve got an F sharp minor (F#m); it’s a barre chord, so if you’re a beginner this could be a little bit more challenging for you. What we’re going to do is we’re gonna come up and we’re gonna barre our first finger all the way across the second fret across all six strings and then our third finger will go into the fourth fret of the A string and our fourth finger onto the fourth fret of the D string. Then we’ve got G sharp minor (G#m); so we just move this shape up a whole step so now we’re barring at the fourth fret and the third and fourth fingers are on the sixth fret. And then we’ve got A major; so do we just take this G#m shape and move it up a half step so now we’re barring at the fifth fret and we’re going to keep our third and fourth fingers where they are this point, now they’re on the seventh fret of the A and the D string and then we’re going to take our middle finger and put it down onto the sixth fret of the G string and those are our chords. Okay so this is fairly quickly paced too,but we’re just gonna work on it slowly and you can build up the speed over time. So the first measure is E and it’s one two three and four one two three and four. Then the second measure we go to the F#m and now the strumming pattern is going to change. We’ve got an eighth note and then two sixteenth notes and that sequence is repeated three times; so it’s like long short short long short short long short short long, so it’s like one e and two e and three and… Now we move up to the G#m and it’s the same strum that we did on E and we switch to the a same strum we did on the F#m… and then it just repeats…
Head East Riff-3 – If You Knew Me Better
All right now the last Head East riff we’re going to look at is a riff from If You Knew Me Better. So this one again is fairly simple, it’s got just a straight forward eighth note feel all the way through it. So you start off with A5; so I’m just barring the second fret of the D and the G string with my first finger and then playing the A string open. So we hit this one and so on the and of one and the downbeat of two we just pedal the A string; so one and two and three and four and. Okay so that’s the first measure. Now for the second measure we have an F over A (F/A); so if we just keep our first finger where it is and then drop our second finger onto the third fret of the D string and fourth finger onto the fifth fret of the G string. So now we’re playing that we still have the open A string and the same picking pattern that we just did… Now you could just reach up like that, I just think it’s easier to do it this way, but whichever way you want to do it, you don’t need to keep your first finger over here when we go to that that F/A… Now the third measure is D5; so if we just take the regular old D chord, but we’re just not going to play the note that’s on the high E string, same pattern, but now the pedaling is on the D string. Now the timing is a little bit different, so for this one we’ve got one and two and three and four and… Then we’re going to go to a G5; so it’s just a regular old power chord like we did in Never Been Any Reason. So first finger, third fret of the low E string and then I’m using my third finger to pick up the fifth fret of the edge or you can use your pinky, whatever’s more comfortable, back to the… Now the strumming on this is the same as it was for D, but now we’re on the lower string; so we’re going to be pedaling the E string and it has a change here. So we go we start with this G5; one and two and then on the and of two we’re just going to move this shape down a whole step so now it’s F5. So we’ve got one and two… and that’s the whole thing just repeats…
Conclusion
All right, so there you have it, three fun and not too terribly difficult riffs to play from Head East. 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 three fun & east riffs by Head East and have a great day.
