Learn to play 3 fun and easy guitar riffs by Jethro Tull from 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 3 fun & easy guitar riffs in record time.
Introduction
How’s it going everybody? This is Darrin with GuitarControl.com bringing you this video lesson and today I’ve got three riffs for you from Jethro Tull.
Right now Guitar Control has this free chord chart. It’s a free download in PDF format, there’s a link down in the description. It’s really well organized and has every chord that you could ever need at a glance, a really useful tool, and it’s a free download. Get yours, print it off, put it where you practice, throw it in your gig bag, whatever you might need it.
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.
Jethro Tull Riff-1 – Locomotive Breath
All right, so the first one we’re going to look at here is a Locomotive Breath. So with this one we’ve just got three chords; we’ve got E minor (Em)… and we’ve got a G, but it’s a different voicing of G. So if the if you know how to play this first position F major chord you just take that shape and move it up. So I’m barring the third fret of the high E and the B string with my first finger and then I’m on the fourth fret of the G string with my second finger and the fifth fret of the D string with my third finger. Then we have D, just regular D… and those are the three chords that we’ve got for this. So we start off with the Em, and it’s eighth notes, so we’ve got one and two, and then on the and two we’re just going to do a muted strum… and then on the downbeat of three we go to that G for a quarter note, three, and then to D for beat four… so that’s the first measure. And then starting on the second measure we go back to the Em for beat one and then we’re gonna just do a muted strum of eighth notes for beats two three and four; so two and three and four and. And then on the third measure the downbeat of one is another strum, so it’s like one two and three and four and one and the and of one we hit the Em chord again and on the downbeat of two we just do a quick upstroke of the first two strings open because we’re still in that Em voicing… And then we have a rest on the and of two and then for beat three it’s the G and beat four it’s the D and then it just repeats… that’s basically the whole riff.
Jethro Tull Riff-2 – Sweet Dream
All right so the next we’re going to look at is Sweet Dream. This one is really simple as far as it just has two chords and some single notes, but this one is just kind of weird, the timing on it is really weird. So we start off we’ve got three pickup notes here; so we’ve got the A string open to the fifth fret with your first finger and then the seventh fret with your third finger, and this is a triplet, so triple it, one yel low, how I count it. And then starting on beat two we’ve got this E5 chord; so we’re on the seventh fret of the A string with your first finger and the ninth fret of the D string with your third finger and the ninth fret of the G string with your fourth finger and the low E, B and high E strings are all open… so that’s like a really big cool, powerful voicing of that chord. So we’ve got the one yel low and then starting on the downbeat of three we hit the open low E string and then on the and of three we hit the fifth fret of the D string, but that’s a quarter note, so it we pick it on the and of three, but it rings out for the downbeat of four and then on the and of four we hit the open A string… So I’ve got the… and then on the downbeat of the next measure we just move that note from the fourth fret or excuse me, from the fifth fret to the fourth fret and that’s one and then on the downbeat of two is the open A string again and on the and of two this note on the D string, move down to the third fret so we hit that on the and of two, but it’s tied to all of beat three… so that measures like one two and three, and then on the downbeat of four it’s a quarter note and we have another E5. So we left off with our third finger or excuse me our first finger on the third fret of the D string so we’re just going to move that down a half step, so we’re at the second fret and then we’re going to take our third finger and put it on the fourth fret of the G string and our fourth finger onto the fifth fret of the B string and then the high E string is open… Now you may have trouble getting that high E string because of your finger, but it doesn’t matter because it’s an E and we’re getting that E right here on the fifth fret of the B string. So if you can’t it’s just not a big deal and then the whole thing just repeats… So that’s it, it’s a really weird, like I said the timing on it is really strange and it’s kind of a weird riff.
Jethro Tull Riff-3 – Aqualung
All right and then finally the last one we’re going to look at is uh riff from Aqualung. This is undoubtedly one of the weirdest guitar riffs of all time. I mean this is a weird riff and the chord progression is really weird, but it’s kind of cool, you know I like it. I think because it is kind of weird and then i just used to always hear this song you know when I was a kid on the radio. All right so we’re gonna start off we’re on the fifth fret of the A string with your third finger and then we’re going to go to the third fret of the low E with your first finger and then to the sixth fret with your pinky… and then to the third fret of the A string to the fourth fret and then back to the third fret… With this we’ve got one and two and three, so this is a quarter note four… so when we hit that fourth fret we want to put a little bit of vibrato on that, three four, and then we rest all of the next measure… So starting on the third measure it’s the same as the first measure again and then we’re going to go to a C-sharp major (C#) chord; so this is like completely made up of two chord shapes we have to look at. We have the major barre chord with the root note being on the A string. So if you’re a beginner you probably already learned it as a B, but we’re just going to move that around so whatever note your first finger is playing on the A string is what chord you’re playing. So this it starts on a C#, which is here on the fourth fret, so I’d be playing the fourth fret of the A string with my first finger and then barring the sixth fret of the D, G and B string. So you can move that shape around wherever and just whatever note your first finger is playing on the A string is what chord you’re playing. So we’ve got that and then we also have the major barre chord shape with the root note being on the low E string. So that’s the one looks like your F you probably learned originally, but it’s the same idea, whatever note your first finger is playing on the low E string is what chord you’re playing. So we do this shape actually at the seventh fret right here… So I’m taking my first finger and I’m just barring it all the way across the seventh fret and then I’ve got my second finger on to the eighth fret of the G string and my third finger onto the ninth fret of the A string and my fourth finger onto the ninth fret of the D string. So it’s just like an E major shape, but it’s like using my first finger as a capo. All right so after the second… we’re gonna move our first finger from there up to the fourth fret, so this is where C# is, drop our third finger on and we strum this on the downbeat of one, but it’s a dotted quarter note, so it’s like one two, and then on the and of two we hit it again and then we hit it again on the downbeat of three, and it’s a half note so it’s going to ring out for beats 3 and 4… And then we move that shape up a whole step to D#, so now our first finger is at the sixth fret, third finger is at the eighth fret and we rest on the downbeat of one and then we strum this on the and of one and two, and then on down on beat three it’s a half note, so it’s like and one and two three four. Then we’re going to move that shape up a whole step again so now we’re at the eighth fret with our first finger and the tenth fret with our third finger and that’s measure six. So this is an F and we have that same timing, well sort of, this is a dotted quarter note, so it’s one two and three, and then we move back down a whole step for the downbeat of four and then back up to F for the and; so we have… And then starting on measure seven we go back to this again, back to the sixth fret, the D#, back up to the F again and then up a half step to F#… and then back down to C#… when we hit that it’s a half note and it’s on beat three so it takes care of beat three and four. Then we move back up to D# again and we rest on the downbeat of one, so it’s like one and two and three, back down to C#, four and, and then all the way up to the ninth fret with our first finger to the 11th fret for beat four and then on the next measure one and back down to seven and then this is where we switch to that other chord voicing’s. We have a B so we right here, the same frets, we just switch to the major barre chord shape with the root note on the low E string and then we move it all the way up to the 10th fret and that’s beats 3 and 4 and then the whole thing would just repeat. So that strumming part… the whole thing…
Conclusion
All right so there you have it, three riffs from Jethro Tull. 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 Jethro Tull and have a great day.
