Learn 3 fun and easy Steve Miller Band guitar riffs from Guitar Control instructor Darrin Goodman. Be sure to get the free tabs to go along with the step by step video instruction and you will be rockin’ these killer riffs tonight!
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 the Steve Miller Band.
Right now if you click on the link in the description of this video you can download a free chord chart from Guitar Control. This is in PDF format so you can print it out and it has every chord that you could ever need for whatever situation you’re in at a glance, very useful tool and it’s free from Guitar Control, just click the link.
So be sure to click on the link in description for the tabs and let’s get close up and take a look at these.
Steve Miller Band Riff-1 – Jet Airliner
All right so the first one we’re going to look at is the riff from Jet Airliner. So this is just all a single notes riff and we’re starting here on the third fret of the A string with your first finger and we’re going to play that and that’s on the down beat of one and this this is made up of eighth notes on this first part here. Then we’re gonna go to the fifth fret of the G string with your third finger to the third fret of the G string with your first finger and then back to the fifth fret of the G string… All right, so when we play this note here… that’s a eighth note and it’s on the and of two, but it’s tied to the downbeat of three and then on the and of three we come back to the third fret of the G string and then starting on the downbeat of four we’re going to move our first finger straight down so we’re on the third fret of the D string and we’re going to pick that and do a hammer-on to the fifth fret with our third finger and then pull back off to three and then end on the sixth fret of the A string with your fourth finger. So that’s the whole riff…
Steve Miller Band Riff-2 – Rockin’ Me
All right so the next we’re going to look at is Rocking Me. So for this one I’m gonna start off with an A5 power chord; so we’re here on the fifth fret of the low E string my first finger and the seventh fret of the A string with my third finger and you can also add the seventh fret of the D string as well if you like. So this starts on the last beat of the first measure, we rest and then we’re gonna start on that A and it’s two sixteenth notes and then an eighth note and then on the second measure we just move that shape up a whole step so now we’re at the seventh and ninth fret and we slide out of that so we’ve got… All right so after we slide out of that we have just a short eighth note rest and then we’re going to strum this B5 again and then we’re going to move it straight up so now our first finger is on the seventh fret of the A string and our third fingers on the ninth fret of the D string for an E5… And then on the third measure we come back and we hit this B5 again and slide out of it again; so, so far we’ve got… and that’s like the first half of this riff. So after that we’re going to come up and we’re going to put our first finger here on the ninth fret and we’re going to barre our finger so it’s going across the ninth fret of the A, B and G string and we’re going to strum this and then do a hammer-on with our third finger to the 11th fret of the A string; we just want this to all ring out over each other… So we strum, hammer and then we hit the A string again and then we just repeat that and it does it five times and then on the last one here we just hit where we’re still barring here at the ninth fret, so we’re just going to hit the D and G string… Then after that our final measure we just come back to the B5 again; so we’re on the seventh and ninth fret here on the E and A string again and we hit that and then slide out of it and then at the end here work back to the A5 and then that’s where it would repeat…
Steve Miller Band Riff-3 – The Joker
All right so the last we’re going to look at here is the main riff, it’s kind of the bassline, but the guitar follows it too, for The Joker. Now they’re originally on this song in some kind of an alternate tuning I believe, but this is just a way so you can play it and still be in just standard tuning. So it’s pretty simple, it’s all single notes. So we start off here on the first fret of the low E string… so we’re playing this and it’s one and two e and three, and it’s kind of got this weird… you know… and that’s like the first measure. So we’re one, open A string to the first fret twice and one more time to the D string open… so that’s half of the riff. Then starting on the second measure we’re going to take our third finger we’re going to put it here on the third fret of the A string and we’re gonna do that as two eighth notes for beat one and then we have an eighth note rest and then we’re gonna go to the third fret of the low E string and this last part here is all 16th notes; so we’re three and then the open A string to the first fret, one, two, three, four and then the A string open twice, one, two and then back to the third fret of the low E two, and then the whole thing would just repeat… and then it would just start over again…
Conclusion
All right so there you have it, three fun pretty easy riffs to play from The Steve Miller Band. 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. I’m still continuing to do my subscriber requested rift series so if you have any suggestions for riffs that you’d like to see covered leave them down in the comments and I’ll check that out. If you haven’t 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.
