Learn to play three fun and easy riffs by David Bowie with Guitar Control instructor Darrin Goodman, aka Uncle D. Be sure to get the free tabs to go along with the video instruction and you will be rockin’ these David Bowie classics 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 David Bowie.
Guitar Control right now is giving away a really cool free chord chart. It’s in PDF format and it just has every chord you could ever need all neatly compiled just onto one sheet. So you can download it you can print it off, put a copy where you practice, put a copy in your gig bag; just so whatever situation you’re in you can have any chord you need at a glance and it’s a free download. Just click the link down in the description.
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.
David Bowie Riff-1 – Rebel Rebel
Alright so the first one to look at is the riff from Rebel Rebel… so this one is made up of just mostly just single notes. So we start off we play the open D string and this is a quarter note, one. And then on beat two the high E string open and then on beat three the third fret of the B string; so one two three and. Then on the downbeat of four is the second fret of the B string and then for the and of four we’re going to put our first finger down onto the first fret of the G string and then the B string will be open so that’s like one two three four and… so we hit that on the and of four. Okay so starting on the second measure we rest on the downbeat of one and then on the and of one we just hit that again and then we rest on the downbeat of two and then on the and of two we’re going to hit our open low E string and then starting on the downbeat of three we’re going to play the second fret of the B string… And then pull it to open, three and, and then the downbeat of four is the first fret of the G string and then the and of four is the second fret of the D string and then it just repeats so measures three and four are the same as one and two and then it just repeats… So it’s kind of hard when you get to get that pull-off and not have that string be muted by your other finger; so it’s kind of tricky… See there? It’s hard to get… you really should do it that way instead of trying… I was trying to just keep my finger there and that’s great when it works, but when it don’t… So that would be the way I’d recommend to do it…
David Bowie Riff-2 – Changes
All right, next we’re going to look at is riff from Changes. So this one we’ve got this just full on F major barre chord here; so I’ve got my first finger barring across all six strings at the first fret and then my second finger is on the second fret of the G string and my third finger is on the third fret of the A string and my fourth finger is on the third fret of the D string. So we’re going to play this as eighth notes and it’s a whole measure… And then starting on the second measure we’re going to play the D string, this is all eighth notes as well, one and, so just the D string open, one and the down beat of two is the third fret on the D string and the end of two is the fourth fret… And then starting on the downbeat of three it’s the second fret of the G string, three and, and then the downbeat of four is the fourth fret and then back to the second fret for the and… then it just repeats.
David Bowie Riff-3 – Lets Dance
All right then the last one we’re gonna look at is riff from Let’s Dance. So this one’s kind of weird when you’re just playing it by yourself because there’s a lot of the resting that the guitar does and the bass guitar is kind of keeping everything together during the guitar breaks where the guitar rests. So we’ve got a bunch of like crazy high-pitched chords here. So we got this first one here, we’re on the eighth fret of the D string with your first finger and then you’re on the tenth fret of the G string with your third finger and then I use my pinky to barre the 11th fret of the B string and the high E string; so that’s the chord 8, 10, 11, 11… And the guitar is using a delay effect so the way I’ve got this in here so you can just kind of do the strums that that are actually just hearing the repeat of and the delay. All right so we started the sixteenth note on beat one; one e, so that’s the first beat. And then starting on beat number two we rest on the downbeat and then we strum on the e and then we rest and then we strum a 16th note again, another rest, another 16th note and then we rest for the remainder of the measure plus all of the next measure… So it’s strum, rest, strum, strum, rest, strum, rest, strum, rest, strum, rest. All right and then starting on the third measure we have a variation on this chord. So what we’re going to do is you’re going to roll your pinky up so now you’re only picking up the 11th fret on the B string everything else stays the same and we’re going to take our middle finger and put it onto the ninth fret of the high E string and now we’ve got the exact strum that we just did for the remainder of the measure plus all of the next measure… All right so that brings us to measure five. Now for this chord here we’re going to put our first finger here on to the ninth fret of the high E string and then we need to pick up the 11th fret of the D, G and B string. So I just use my second finger on the 11th fret of the D string, third finger on the 11th fret of the G string and fourth finger on the 11th fret of the B string. Now the strumming here changes a little bit it starts off the same, but the difference is the last two strums don’t have a rest in between them; so you’ve got… So it’s like strum, rest, strum, strum, rest, strum, rest, strum, strum, rest and then rest through the rest of that measure and all of the next measure. And now we’re back on the second chord, the E flat minor (Ebm). So from going from here we’re just going to go back to that same shape that we were doing before. So coming from here pinky stays where it is, first finger moves back to the sixth fret of the d string, third finger goes back to the tenth fret of the G string and middle finger goes back to the ninth fret of the high E string and now we’re back to the original strum again and then the whole thing would just start over again…
Conclusion
All right, there you have it, three fun, not too terribly difficult riffs to play from David Bowie. 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 and have a great day.
