Learn to play three fun and easy John Mellencamp riffs with Guitar Control instructor Darrin Goodman, aka Uncle D. Be sure to get the free tabs so you can easily follow along and you will be rock these John Mellencamp riffs tonight!
Introduction
How’s it going everybody? This is Darrin with GuitarControl.com bringing this video Lesson and today I’ve got three fun and easy riffs for you from John Mellencamp.
So right now Guitar Control is giving away this really cool free chord chart, there’s a link down in the description where you can download yours. Every chord you can ever need all neatly compiled onto one sheet so you can download it, print it off, put a copy in your gig bag, put a copy where you practice so just whatever situation you’re in you have any chord you can need at a glance and it’s free download.
So be sure to click on the link in the description for the tab so let’s get close up and take a look at these John Mellencamp riffs.
John Mellencamp Riff-1 – Hurts So Good
All right, so the first John Mellencamp riff we’re going to look at is the rift from Hurts So Good. To the first thing we’re going to want to do is take your first finger and just barre it like you’re doing an A major chord; so the A string is open and my first finger is barring the D string, G string and B string all at the second fret. Now the next thing we’re going to do is we’re going to take our middle finger and we’re going to put it onto the third fret of the B string and our third finger onto the fourth fret of the G string. So we hit the A string open for beat one, one, and then two and, and we’re just playing just the B and the G string at this time. So we’re going two and three and… two three and then on the and of three we’re gonna lift those two fingers off so we’re just barring the second fret of those two strings. So you got the one two and three and then for the downbeat of four is a mute and the and of four is just the open A string again. So that’s the first measure and then starting on the second measure beat number one we have a quarter note, we’ve still got our finger barred here and now we’re going to take our third finger and we’re going to put it so it’s on the fourth fret of the D string and then play that and the G string which is the second fret being picked up by that first finger. So that’s one, two and, so on the downbeat of two we hit the open A string, the and of two, we hit just an A5 and that is coming in on the and of two and it’s a quarter note so it rings out for the downbeat of three; so it’s like and three… So on the and of three we hit the open low E string, the down beat of four is the second fret and the and a four is the open A string and then the whole thing would just repeat…
John Mellencamp Riff-2 – Jack And Diane
So the next John Mellencamp riff we’re going to look at is the riff from Jack and Diane. So this is made up of just a bunch of the Triad shapes that if you’ve done any of the lessons I’ve done with Triads these are all going to be shapes that you’ve done before and a couple of more shapes that you’ve done even if you haven’t studied Triads. So the first one here we’ve got this A over C sharp (A/C#); so I’m just going to take my first finger and just barre the fifth fret of the B string and the high E string and then my second finger is going to go onto the sixth fret of the G string. So we hit this and we’re just playing just these first three strings. So we hit this on the downbeat of one; one, and then on the and of one we take our pinky and put it onto the seventh fret of the high E string. So it’s one and two on the downbeat of two we rest and now we’re gonna go to an E over B (E/B). So this is a shape that you have seen before. So if you take your regular D chord, but we just move it up a whole step so our first fingers on the fourth fret of the G string, third fingers on the fifth fret of the B string and second fingers on the fourth fret of the high E string… now we hit that on the and of two and the downbeat of three. So it’s like and three and four and a mute strum… Now we hit that mute strum and now we’re going to come down to the D, you know where we normally would do it for the downbeat of one, one e and uh and then a mute. So it’s kind of a thing you have to kind of get through, you just kind of feel it out… Now we hit that strum, mute, strum, mute and then we’re going to move back up a whole step with that D shape and now we’re going to take our Pinky and pick up the fifth fret of the high E string like if you were doing like a D suspended four (Dsus4), but in this case it’s actually Esus4… to that regular D shape, E/B technically and then two mutes and then we’d go on to the next measure and that’s our first two measures. So that third measure is basically the same as the first measure. Then on the fourth measure we come down to the D shape, mute, up a whole step for the E/B and then a mute and then that first chord shape again… and then two mutes to finish it off and then that whole thing with those four measures just repeats…
John Mellencamp Riff-3 – ROCK In The USA
All right and then the last John Mellencamp riff to look at is Rock in the USA. This is really easy because it’s 99 of the song is just these three chords; E major, A major and D major and then it does have a B in it for one part. It’s not on the tab, but I’ll show you what it is, it’s pretty simple. So for this you’ve got E and we’re starting on E and this is a quarter note and then two eighth notes; so one, two and, switch to an A, three and, four and… Now starting on the second measure we go to D; one and, two and then on the and of two we go back to A… one and two and three and four and… So that’s the chorus, but on the verse he just does the same thing, he’s just gonna play a little softer and the strum can be a little bit different before it goes into the chorus… Doing that so when he gets to the A instead of repeating he goes to a B; one, two Rocking In The USA… It doesn’t really get much easier than that John Mellencamp riff.
Conclusion
All right, so there you have it, three fun not too terribly difficult riffs to play from John Mellencamp. So if you like this John Mellencamp riff lesson be sure to give me a thumbs up and leave a comment down below if you have any questions about this John Mellencamp riff lesson 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 and easy John Mellencamp riffs and have a great day.
