Learn to play three fun and easy riffs by Bryan Adams 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 rockin’ these 80s classics in record time.
Introduction
Hey everybody how’s it going? This is Darrin with GuitarControl.com bringing you this video lesson and today I’ve got three fun and easy riffs for you from Bryan Adams.
Right now Guitar Control is giving away this cool free chord chart and there’s a link down in the description where you can get yours. It’s in PDF format and has every chord you could ever need all neatly compiled into one sheet. So you can print it off, you can throw it where you practice, put it in your gig bag and any chord you could ever need at a glance and it’s free download get yours.
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.
Bryan Adams Riff-1 – Cuts Like A Knife
All right so the first we’re going to look at is Cuts Like A Knife. So this has two guitar parts that are being played simultaneous that really kind of fill the whole thing out. So I’m going to show you how to do both parts so that way you could record one of them or loop it or have a friend play it or whatever; so you can do both parts. All right so I’m kind of do this a little backwards of how it looks on here, but we’re going to do the guitar two first; I’m going to show you how to do that part first. So it’s pretty simple, it just uses three basic chords. We’ve got D; so D string open, second fret of the G string with my first finger and third fret of the B string with my third finger and second fret of the high E string with my second finger. Then we’re going to go to a G; so keep your third finger just planted there and then you just move your first finger to the second fret of the A string and your second finger to the third fret of the low E string and your pinky to the third fret of the high E string. And then a C add nine (Cadd9) and to make that we just simply move our first and second fingers up a string each so now on the second fret of the A string with my, excuse me the third fret of the A string with my second finger and the second fret of the D string with my first finger. Alright so those are our three chords and again that third finger can just stay planted right there. So we play this first D on the down beat of one and it’s a dotted quarter note so it rings out for all of beat one and then the downbeat of two and then on the and of two we’re going to strum the chord again and let it ring out for the remainder of the measure. Okay so starting on the second measure we basically do the same thing, we’re gonna start with G and then instead of playing G twice we switch to the Cadd9 on the and of two. That’s the first two measures and measures three and four are the same and then the whole thing repeats. All right so while that’s happening guitar one is playing this little melody over the top of it so that’s what we’re gonna look at now. So come up here to the ninth fret with your first finger onto the G string and we’re going to be doing this the D string is just going to be being played open, just pedaled, so we hit 9 and then go to the 11th fret on the G string with our third finger on the and of one; so one and two and then on the and of two or excuse me on the downbeat of two we rest. Then on the and of two we’re going to come back here to the ninth fret and we’re going to pick that and slide to the 11th fret. Now when we slide to that that is on the and of two and then it’s tied to a quarter note; so it’s the and of two plus all of beat three. And then on beat four we just come down we go nine and then on the and of four seven… All right then starting on the second measure we’re gonna slide back to the nine and then down to four… seven… then down to the second fret and we hammer-on to the fourth fret… and then back to the second fret. So that’s on the and that’s four and on the second measure and then it just rings out over beats three and or excuse me over measures three and four.
Bryan Adams Riff-2 – Run To You
All right so next we’re going to look at is the riff from Run To You. So for this one here I’m barring my first finger across the second fret of the E, A and D string and then I’m going to take my third finger and use it to pick up the fourth fret of the A string and this is all eighth notes, so this is c sharp minor over f sharp (C#m/F#)… So we’re going to play E, A, D, E, A, D, A, E, one and two and three and four and, except I did that wrong, one and two and three and four and… that’s our first measure. Now starting on the second measure we have an A; so we’re just going to keep what we’re doing here but we’re going to take our pinky and pick up the fifth fret of the low E string and we’re going to just play E, A, D and then this next part is the trickiest part out of it. We’re going to come up to the seventh fret on the low E string and the sixth fret on the A string and then we’re gonna pick E, A, and then we’re to take our third finger pick up the seventh fret of the A string, back to the six and then back to the E string…
Bryan Adams Riff-3 – Summer Of 69′
All right then the last one to look at is the riff from the chorus on Summer Of 69. Fun fact this is one of the first like cool song I ever learned how to play when I was learning how to play the guitar when I was a kid. So we’ve got this riff that’s all based around um D, D suspended two (Dsus2) and D suspended four (Dsus4) and A, A suspended two (Asus2) and A suspended four (Asus4). So it’s pretty easy if you just put your fingers down for good old D and remove your middle finger so that the high E string is open, that is Dsus2 and this is all made up of eighth notes for the most part. We’re going to play one and two; so just E, G, G and then we’re going to put our middle finger down to make it a D chord and do the same picking and then we’re going to put our pinky down onto the third fret which makes Dsus4, one, the downbeat on the second measure and then we take our pinky off back to D and two and take our pinky off and three and put it back on four and this is the actually a quarter note… All right so that’s the first two measures and it’s half of the riff. Now we’re going to switch to doing basically the same thing around A. So that first melody line if you look at it just those notes… we’re gonna do the same thing on the B string… So we’re gonna need to do Asus2 and how I do this my first finger is on the second fret of the D string and my second finger is on the second fret of the G string and my third finger is on the second fret of the B string. So that would be A, but we’re looking for Asus2, so we’re going to remove our third finger so that the B string is open and we’re going to do the same picking, but now it’s going to be starting on the B string; so it’ll be the B, G and D string. We put our third finger down to make A, now put our pinky down onto the third fret of the B string to make Asus4, take it off back to A, take your third finger off put it back on and that’s it…
Conclusion
All right so there you have it, three fun not too terribly difficult riffs to play by Bryan Adams. 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 3 Fun & Easy Riffs By Bryan Adams and have a great day.
