3 More Fun & Easy Riffs By Led Zeppelin Vol-5

Learn to play three more fun and easy guitar riffs by Led Zeppelin 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 Zeppelin riffs tonight!

Led Zeppelin Riffs 5.0

Introduction

How’s it going everybody? This is Darrin with GuitarControl.com bringing you this video lesson and today I’ve got three more fun and easy riffs for you from Led Zeppelin.

Right now Guitar Control is giving away this really cool free chord chart, there’s a link down in the description where you can get yours. You can download it and print it off. It’s in PDF format and has every chord that you could ever need all neatly compiled into one sheet. So print it off, throw one in your gig bag, put one where you practice; just any situation you can have any chord you might need at a glance and it’s free.

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.

Led Zeppelin Riff-1 – Kashmir

All right so the first we’re going to look at is the main riff from Kashmir. So for the whole song it’s in an open tuning, it’s in DADGAD, but for the riff we’re playing we’re not gonna be playing the B string or the high E string. So just to simplify this you can just tune to drop D, so basically we do is we’re going to tune our low E string down a whole step so it’s a so it’s the same pitch as your is your fourth string; anyway that’s just to play this riff, but if you ended up learning the whole song you would have to adjust the high e and the B string as well. All right so this is pretty simple. There’s just one part where there’s a transition that if you’re a beginner it might be kind of tough, but for the most of it it’s pretty simple. So I’ve got my fourth finger here on the fifth fret of the A string and then my first finger onto the second fret of the G string. So now when we strum we’re going to play the A, D and G string, it’s actually a D5, but were playing the D note twice to make it a D5. So we do this for two 16th notes and then an eighth note and then a rest. So an easy way to do it is if you’re like one two three four one two three it doesn’t really count that way but that’s just a way to group it together. So three rest, three and then the second time you rest then you do it again, but this time instead of the rest we’re going to put in just the open low E string. So we’re kind of droning this D note all the way through this and then we’re going to take our first finger we’re just going to move it up one fret so now it’s on the third fret and our pinky is just going to stay here and now we’re going to do the same rhythm we just did and then we’re going to move up to the fourth fret. So you could just continue to slide your first finger up like this or use a different finger; whatever is more comfortable, same thing. Now we’re going to go so we’re both on the fifth fret so this is the transition that’s kind of tricky. So what you’re going to want to do is this you’re going to want to switch from having your pinky on the fifth fret of the A string to your first finger being there and then your second finger dropping to the fifth fret of the G string. Now the reason we want to do this is because we’re going to do the same thing here and we’re going to do that same rhythm. We’re on the fifth fret, open and then fifth fret and then the note on the G string is going to go to the seventh fret. So now you’re going to be stretching this way and then it starts over again it goes back to the second fret. So the transition from getting from here to here or here and then back that’s going to be the toughest part if you’re if you’re a beginner…

Led Zeppelin Riff-2 – The Rain Song

All right so the next we’re going to look at is the riff from The Rain Song. Now for this one it’s also in an open tuning and this one’s a little weird. This is the first time I’ve ever even used this open tuning. So we’re going to tune our E string down to a D and we’re going to tune our G string down to a G and our D string down to a C… Then we’re going to leave our G string the same and we’re going to tune our B string up a half step here to C and then our high E string down a whole step… All right so this one pretty simple. I’m going to start off here at the seventh fret and my third finger is here on the seventh fret of the B string and then I’m using my second finger to play the seventh fret of the D string and then we’re going to strum starting we’re not going to play the low E string at all; so again this is another one like on the last one, just to play this riff you wouldn’t even have to go into drop D with this string, but it’s just for stuff later on in the song. So start off with that and this is coming in on the and of four and then it’s tied to the downbeat of one of the second measure; so it’s like one two three four and one and. Then starting on for beats two three and four is eighth notes you’re gonna do a down stroke and you wanna try to catch the D, G and B string and then an upstroke catching the high E, B and G string. So you got this like two and three and four and then on the and of four we’re gonna strum again, but we’re gonna move down one fret, so we stay on the same strings here on the D and the B string, but we’re going to move down to the sixth fret and then it does the same thing, same rhythm…  So we’re supposed to switch, so I messed up there, so let’s try that again; one two three four and one two three and four and one two and three and four and… All right so that’s the first three measures. So then starting on the fourth measure we’re going to take this shape and we’re going to move it down a half step again; so now we’re at the at the fifth fret, but we’re going to take our first finger and drop it here on to the fourth fret of the G string and that’s the reason why I wasn’t doing this and doing this because it just makes it easier to make the change… Okay so we come to this chord here, G7, and we’re going to do two strums. So down, up, this is a good way to do it, then we’re going to switch to our next shape, it actually looks like the triad shapes that we’ve done in previous lessons. So here I’m on the on the fifth fret of the D string with my third finger, the fourth fret of the G string with my second finger, and the third fret of the B string with my first finger. And then we have to flatten the note on the B string to the second fret, but you’re only there for just a second and then the open A string and then just barre your first finger like you’re doing an open G minor chord except you’ll be picking up the D string as well; so on the third fret of the D, G and B string with the A string open… and that’s basically the whole riff.

Led Zeppelin Riff-3 – Rock and Roll

All right, so the last riff we’re going to look at is the riff from Rock and Roll. This one’s just in standard tuning and it’s kind of based on a 12 bar blues shuffle; just a variation on something that you’ve probably already played before. So I don’t have all 12 measures on here, but it’s just because it’s the same riff just played in on different strings. So we start off here, I’m going to put my first finger here on the second fret of the D string and the A string will be open and we’re going to play this and this is eighth notes. We rest on one and then on the and of one, and then the downbeat of two we go to the third fret of the A string, but you just want to keep your first finger planted here on the second fret. So and two and three, so again keep our first finger on here on the second fret of the D string, but we’re going to come up to the fifth fret and we’re gonna play that note and this is on the downbeat of three and back to the second fret down beat of four is the fourth fret and then the and of four is that same bend, back to the open and this is on the and of four, but it’s tied to the downbeat of one and two and three and four and then that’s where it repeats…

So that’s one thing that you can kind of do to kind of help hold it all together because there’s two guitar parts on this; so one’s doing the… while the other ones ringing out then the other one is doing that… So when I’m just playing that by myself what I’ll do is alternate in pedaling the open A string just to kind of help me to keep where I am and in the rhythm of it all… All right, so that’s basically the riff. Now we do two bars of that, or excuse me four bars of that and then we’re gonna go to. So it’s like our one chord. And then we’re going to go to our four chord, which is D. So what we’re going to do is we’re just going to move our first finger up one string so now we’re on the second fret of the G string and the D string is open. So we’re going to do that same the same frets the same rhythm, but instead of being played on the A and D string it’s playing on the D and G string. So we have two measures of this and then back for two measures of the one chord, so back to the A… then we go to our five chord which is E. So now we’re going to do the opposite. We’re going to move down so now our first finger is going to come down one string; so now we’re on the second fret of the A string and the low E string is open, same rhythm, back to the A… and then that’s so that’s like basically the whole intro to the to the song.

Conclusion

All right so there you have it, three more not too terribly difficult riffs to play from Led Zeppelin. 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 more Led Zeppelin riffs and have a great day.