Learn to play three fun and easy riffs by Reo Speedwagon 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 Reo Speedwagon 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 fun and easy riffs for you from Reo Speedwagon.
Right now Guitar Control is giving away a cool free chord chart and there’s a link down the description where you can download yours. It’s in PDF format with every chord you could ever need all neatly compiled into one sheet. So you can print it off, throw it in your gig bag or put it wherever you practice; any chord you could ever need at a glance and it’s free download, just click the link.
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 Reo Speedwagon riffs.
Reo Speedwagon Riff-1 – Roll With The Changes
All right so the first Reo Speedwagon riff we’ve got is Roll With The Changes and so we’ve got just a regular old A major chord; so the A string is open and I’m fretting the second fret of the D, G and B strings. And you can just use one finger or you can do the multi-finger method like this; whichever is more comfortable for you. All right as far as the timing and the strumming for this it’s made up of eighth notes and sixteenth notes. So beat number one is two eighth notes, beat number two is an eighth note and two sixteenth notes, but that sixteenth is at the and of two and is tied to the first sixteenth note of beat three; so beat three is entirely sixteenth notes so you’re coming from that four… So if you notice that it’s the same way on beat 3 the last 16th note is tied to the first 16th note of the previous measure, so it’s like… So if you want to think of it as like down, down, down, up, up, down, up, down, down… Okay and then the next chord is a D over A (D/A); so it’s like a like a regular D chord, but we’re going to change the bass note to an A, but we’re going to do it here. So how I do this chord is I just barre my first finger at the second fret across the first three strings and then use my second finger to pick up the third fret of the B string and then my third finger to pick up the fourth fret of the D string and the A string is open and with this we’ve got the exact same strumming that we did before. Then we’re going to go to a G over A (G/A) so what we’re going to do is just move this shape up a half step and move your second finger from the B string to the G string; so it’s like the F, but just moved up here and we’ve got half of a measure, back to the D/A and then back to the A… and then the whole thing just repeats…
Reo Speed Wagon Riff-2 – Riding The Storm Out
All right so next Reo Speedwagon riff we’ve got Riding The Storm Out. So this one also has some different chord shapes than you maybe have done in the past, but nothing too terrible. So we start off we’ve got an A minor (Am); so my first finger is on the first fret of the B string and my second finger is on the second fret of the D string and my third finger’s on the second fret of the G string. So we’ve got the shape and now you lift your second and third finger off and play the D and the G string open and then hammer these two back on. So if you’re a beginner this might be kind of difficult because these two fingers are going to not want to work in tandem you know, they’re going to kind of want to do their own thing; so just kind of just practice that and it shouldn’t take too terribly long and you’ll get it. So that’s like one and, and then on the downbeat of two we hit just the G in the B string and then we pedal the A string open twice. And now it says B minor (Bm), but we’re just playing the top end, so you can just take this Am chord shape and move it up a whole step; so now your first finger is on the third fret of the B string and your second finger is on the fourth fret of the D string and your third fingers on the fourth fret of the G string… And then another muted A string and now we’ve got a C, but it’s the top end of the C, so it’s just the fifth fret of the D string and the G and the B string and I just use my middle finger because then we’re just going to work our way back down… So after we do that we move back down to the B5… and then just more or less starts over again…
Reo Speedwagon Riff-3 – Time For Me To Fly
All right and then the last Reo Speedwagon riff we’re going to look at is Time For Me To Fly. So for this one it’s actually in an open tuning; so you need to tune your low E string down to A, A and the D string stays the same, our G string down a half step to f sharp (F#), our B string down a whole step to an A and our high E string down to a D. Now this one’s pretty easy as far as what you have to do with your with your fretting hand. So the first chord is just D and it’s just all of the strings open… Then we’re going to go to a G add 9 (Gadd9); so going to take your first finger and pick up the fifth fret of the low E string and then kind of use that’s to mute the A string and then I’m gonna take my second finger and get the fifth fret of the D string and my third finger to get the fifth fret of the G string and then the B and high E strings are open. And then we’re going to do this same shape up a whole step, so everything’s at the seventh fret, so up here it’s A add four (Aadd4)… So the timing for this is a little strange; you’ve got one two e and… So trying to sit and count out like that is going to be difficult because it’s like a quarter note, then a dotted eighth note and then three 16th notes and then an eighth note tied to a 16th note and three 16th notes. So if you think of it more like how the song is you can kind of kind of strum it out that way, like tapping the timing out… Okay so an alternative way that you could do those chords too is you could use your thumb… if that’s more comfortable for you. It’s not comfortable at all for me to use my thumb, so I just do it this way, but I watched a live video of Reo Speedwagon and Kevin Cronin uses his thumb when he’s playing it live.
Conclusion
All right so there you have it, three fun and not too terribly difficult riffs to play from Reo Speedwagon. 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 we uploaded throughout the week. Well that is all I have for you today. Thanks for watching three fun and easy Reo Speedwagon riffs and have a great day.
