Learn to play 3 fun & easy riffs by Red Hot Chili Peppers with 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. Today I’ve got three riffs for you from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. 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.
Red Hot Chili Pepper Riff-1 – Scar Tissue
All right so the very first one we’re going to look at is the riff from Scar Tissue. So for this there’s a couple of ways that you can play it. You can play just with your fingers or you can do it hybrid picking; that’s how I play it. So we start off we’re on the third fret of the D string with your first finger and then we’re going to be on the fifth fret of the high E string and I’m just using my pinky; so my first finger on the D string and my pinky on the high E string and I play the lower notes this notes that are either on the D or the A string with my pick and then the notes that are going to fall on either the high E or the B string I use a finger. So for this we start off with… that’s our first note, this F here on the third fret of the D string and we play that as a quarter note, so it’s like one and then on the downbeat of two we pluck the E string and then we’re back to the D string… back to the E string… back to the D string… back to the E string… so it goes… back and forth… So when we play this one’s a quarter note and then this is an eighth note and then two sixteenths and then an eighth, so it’s… Then we’re just going to move that shape down a set of strings so now our pinky will move from the fifth fret of the high E string to the fifth fret of the B string and our first finger will go from the third fret of the D string to the third fret of the A string… and then we’re going to play that on the and of four and then on the next downbeat we play it again, but now we’re gonna slide up so our first finger is gonna slide from the third fret to the fifth fret, but our pinky is only gonna go from the fifth to the sixth fret…. so that’s a little tricky if you’re new… And then we follow that with the B string, A string, B string, A string, B string, A string and then we are going to do a pull-off with our pinky here on the sixth fret of the B string; so we’re going to drop our third finger down to the fifth fret and we’re going to do a pick and pull and then end on that third fret of the A string and that’s the first two measures… So that’s kind of tricky and then starting on the third measure it just goes back to the same thing again and then we do the slide thing and we left that ring for a second and then we come up and it’s a pull, pick, eight, pull-off to six on the B string twice and then it just starts over again…
Red Hot Chili Pepper Riff-2 – Californication
All right so the next we’re going to look at is Californication. So this one is just two chords; we have an A minor and then we have F. So even though with this F we’re not going to be playing all these notes so if you already know how to play the F barre chord then it you already have the muscle memory of where to put your fingers, but if not, it’s all right. So this is pretty easy, we just start off with the A minor and we’re going to pick A, D, B… so we’re going to do is we’re going to do A minor and you’re going to lift your first finger off so it’s actually A suspended two (Asus2), but then we’re going to put that finger back on so we’re going to go A, D, B and then put your finger back on, so one and, two and, three, four… So when we put our finger down it’s on the and of two and it’s an eighth note, but it’s tied to a half note, so it takes up the whole rest of that measure… Then we’re going to switch to the F and we’re going to do the same thing, we’re going to lift our middle finger off and we’re going to go E, A, G string open and then put our middle finger on. So another way you could do this too is just do like an F5 power chord so your first finger is picking up the first fret of the low E string and your third finger is getting the third fret of the A string and the G string open and then your middle finger down on the second fret… and then it just repeats…
Red Hot Chili Pepper Riff-3 – Under The Bridge
All right and then the last one we’ll look at is Under The Bridge and this one is in my opinion the most difficult one out of out of these. So for this one here we’re starting off we’ve got this D chord here that it’s a pretty awkward shape… we’re on the fifth fret of the A string with my pinky, fourth fret of the D string with my third finger and then the second fret of the G string with my first finger. So for those of you who know triads that’s your major triad in root position rooted on the A string. We’re also going to take our middle finger and we’re going to put it on the third fret of the B string and this is all arpeggiated; so we’re going to go A, D, G, D, B, G… Then we’ve got this little run; fourth fret of the A string to the second fret to the fifth fret of the low E string to the fourth fret and that takes up all of beat four, four e and uh… Then we’ve got an F-sharp major chord and that’s the barre chord; so I’m just barring my first finger here across the second fret and the only note for this particular thing we really need to make sure we get it’s just the second fret of the low E string and then my third finger is on the fourth fret of the A string, my fourth finger is on the fourth fret of the D string and my second finger is on the third fret of the G string. And now we’re going to go E, A, D, A, G, A and then we’ve got another run for beat four and this time we’re going to do it on the D string; so fourth fret to the second fret to the fifth fret of the A string and then to the second fret, so four e and uh… All right, so after we do that, now going into the third measure we’re gonna go back to that that crazy chord we did at the beginning, but you actually start on the fourth fret and you have to slide into it, so this is kind of awkward. Then you have to drop all these fingers down so that might be something you want to practice separately is just getting this chord being able to get in and out of it quickly. So we do that slide and D, A, G, A, B; so we’re playing the B string here with the second with our second finger we’re going to hit that and then we’re going to do a hammer-on to the fifth fret with her pinky, pull-back off to that second fret of the G string and then we’re going to reach up and grab that shape here again and we’re going to start here on the fifth fret of the A string, on the fourth fret of the D string we’re going to hit that and we’re going to pick it and slide up a whole step and then strum it again. And then back to the F and then we’ve got that same run again and then it just goes right back into that same thing; so measures three and four just repeat…
Conclusion
All right so there you have it, three riffs from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The first two not too terribly tough, but that last one is pretty difficult and a really get work out for your fretting hand. 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.
