Learn to play 3 fun and easy guitar riffs by Styx 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 Styx riffs tonight!
Introduction
How’s it going everybody this is Darrin with GuitarControl.com bringing you this video lesson and today I have three fun and easy uh beginner riffs for you from Styx.
Right now Guitar Control is giving away a free chord chart and it’s a free download, there’s a link down in the description. Have access to any chord that you ever need in any situation and it’s a 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.
Styx Riff-1 – Blue Collar Man
All right so the very first one we look at is Blue Collar Man. So we start off we’ve got a D5. So all this is like a regular D major chord, we’re just omitting the high E string; so we’ve got the D string open, second fret of the G string and the third fret of the B string.
So we hit this one and two and then on the and of two we’re going to go to an F5. So we’re going to come up we’re going to put our first finger so it’s on the third fret of the D string and then our third finger onto the fifth fret of the g string and our fourth finger on to the sixth fret of the B string… So we hit that and it’s on the and of two and then it’s tied to all of beat three and then the downbeat of four and then on the and of four we come back to the D5 and it’s the and of four, but its two sixteenth notes and that’s the first measure… Then we go on to the second measure and we’ve got two more of those D5s, so it’s like the first measure where it’s an eighth note and then a quarter note… So we’ve got two 16th notes then the eighth and then a quarter so it ends up being four strums… Then we’re going to take that same shape we did for the F5 and we’re just going to move it up a whole step for G5; so now your first finger is on the fifth fret of the D string third fingers on the seventh fret of the G string and fourth finger is on the eighth fret of the B string and we hit that and then we move it back down to the F and then two sixteenth note of the D5 and that’s the repeat and that’s the first two measures and then that part’s just you know repeated… Then after you repeat it it’s got this little riff here; so we start off on the first fret of the A string, so it goes one three five and then slide to the eighth fret then to the seventh to the fifth and back to the third and then the D5 and that’s all eighth notes, so it’s one and two and three four… Let me hit that again and then it’s tied to a whole note on the next measure…
Styx Riff-2 – Renegade
All right so the next we’re going to look at is the riff from a Renegade. So with this we rest on the first measure for the first three beats and then on the downbeat of four starting here at the 15th fret, but as you’ll see when I play this that it may not always necessarily be right there, but it doesn’t really matter you’ll see why here in a second. So we hit that and we slide out of it… and we come down to the third fret and we’re going to barre the third fret of the A and the D string with just your first finger; so it’s four and. And then starting on the next measure we are going to do that same thing, we’re going to do with the fifth fret; so we’re gonna use our third finger so now our third finger is barring the fifth fret of the a and the D string. So this is all this is eighth notes; one and then on the and of one we bring our first finger up and we barre the third fret of the D and the G string and then to the fifth fret of the D and the G string… so that’s kind of the riff. So after we come up here then we come back down to here to the where we started again… So we’ve got they’re evenly spaced here so the second time we go to this B flat five over F (Bb5/F); so the third fret of the D and the G string and now they’re 16th notes so you guess that… And then back to the F5/C; so the third fret of the A and the D string to the fifth fret then to the third fret of the D and the G string, back to the three and then back to the third fret of the A and D string and then it would just repeat…
Styx Riff-3 – To Much Time On My Hands
All right and the last we’re going to look at um is a riff from Too Much Time On My Hands and this is by far the easiest one out of this; so even if you just started playing guitar today this is something that you’ll probably be able to pick up fairly easy. So this is just like the little riff at the beginning that’s actually played on the keyboard. So what we’re going to be doing is pedaling the A string and then on the D string we’ve got the seventh fret, the fifth fret and the fourth fret and then this thing is all palm muted and it’s all eighth notes; so one and two. So the downbeat of two is the seventh fret of the D string, the and of two is the open A string and then the downbeat of three is the fifth fret of the D string and the and of three is the open A string again and then the downbeat of four is the fourth fret of the D string and the and of four is the fifth fret of the D string. So we want to palm mute the whole thing, so one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and.
Conclusion
All right so there you have it three, not two terribly difficult, riffs to play from Styx. 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 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.
