Learn these three easy classic KISS guitar riffs from Guitar Control instructor Darrin Goodman. Be sure to get the free tabs to go along with this lesson.
Introduction
Hey how’s it going everybody? This is Darrin with GuitarControl.com bringing you this video lesson. Today I want to show you how to play three cool riffs from KISS. So KISS was a huge influence on me and was the first rock band I got into when I was really little and honestly if it wasn’t for Ace Frehley I probably never would have picked up the guitar. So be sure to click on the link in the description for the tabs and let’s get close up and take a look.
KISS Riff-1 All Hell’s Breaking Loose
All right so the first one we’re going to look at is the riff from All Hell’s Breaking Loose and this riff is made up of single notes. So we start off here we’re on the third fret of the low E string with my first finger and this is the downbeat of one and is an eighth note. Then we’re going to go to the A string and we’re going to play it open and then do a hammer-on to the third fret with our first finger and then hammer to the fifth fret with our third finger and this is a triplet… And then from there we go to the third fret of the D string with your first finger and then back to the fifth fret of the A string with your third finger. And then from there you’re gonna put your first finger back onto the third fret of the low E string and then I use my pinky here to come up here to the sixth fret of the low E string; so we go six three six three six and then we’re going to go to the fifth fret of the D string with your third finger and you have to skip over the A string and that’s the first measure. And then for the second measure we’re gonna it starts off the same way so we we’ve got the third fret of the low E string and the A string open hammer three five to the third fret of the D string, back to the fifth fret of the A string and then we’re going to go on to the D string three five and then down to the first fret of the low E string and back to the D string three two and then to the first fret of the A string and then back to the third fret of the low E string. So the last part of that second measure is pretty tricky uh to get it down so just take it slow, the song isn’t like super fast in the first place. So that second measure… so the whole thing…
KISS Riff-2 Firehouse
All right so the next we’re going to look at is the opening riff for Firehouse and this one is made up of dyads and it’s all played on the D and the G string. So we start off here I’m just going to barre the second fret of the D and the G string with my first finger and this is made up of eighth notes so you strum all these chords on the downbeats but then on the upbeat you rest; so it’s like one and then for beat two you’re going to take your first finger you can still just leave it here if you want just barred but you’re going to put your third finger onto the fourth fret of the D string and that’s on the downbeat of two and it’s like one and two and. And then you’re going to take this shape and you’re just gonna move it up a whole step so now you’re fretting the fourth fret of the G string and the sixth fret of the D string and then move it back down again and that’s the first measure… And then for the second measure we start off again the same place the second fret of the d and the g string we so that’s the downbeat of one and we rest on the and of one, the downbeat of two we do sort on the fourth fret of the D and the second fret of the G and then we come we do that on the downbeat of two and then on the and of two we come back to here and it’s a dotted quarter note; so this is like and three and, and then we rest on the downbeat of four and on the and of four we’re going to take this barre we’re just going to move it all the way up to the seventh fret so we’re barring the seventh fret of the D and the G string. So that’s the first two measures… Now when we come up here this is on the and of four and then on the downbeat of the next measure we’re going to keep our finger barred then we’re gonna take our third finger and move it to the ninth fret of the D string and this is on the downbeat of one and then on the and of one we take it back off; so it’s one and two and three, and on the downbeat of four we rest and then on the and of four. Now we’re gonna move our third finger from being on the ninth fret of the D string to the ninth fret of the uh G string and our first finger is picking up the seventh fret of the D and we hit that on the and of four and it’s tied to the downbeat of one of the fourth measure and one and two and three four and then we rest on the and of four…
KISS Riff-3 God Of Thunder
And then right finally we’re going to look at the riff from God of Thunder and this one’s made up of mostly single notes and then at the end it has a little double stop dyad thing. So we start off we have the low E string open twice and that’s one and, and then on the downbeat of two we get the seventh fret of the A string and then on the and of two the seventh fret of the low E string. So how I like to do this is I use my third finger on the a string and then my second finger on the low E and then from there we go for the downbeat of three we go to the fifth fret of the D string with my first finger… And then we have if you notice on your transcription after that five there’s another five that’s lighter smaller font and if you look up the notation it’s a smaller note, it’s like a little ghost note. So throw a little vibrato on there and then on the and of four we hit the open low E string again and that’s the first measure… Then starting on the second measure the downbeat of one we rest and on the and of one we hit the open low E again and then the downbeat of two we hit the seventh fret of the A string again the and of two seventh fret of the low e and then the fifth fret of the A string. So it’s kind of like the how it was on the first measure except after that then we go to the fifth fret of the D string and that’s on that’s a quarter note and that’s on the fourth beat with some vibrato and that’s the first two measures… Then on the third measure it starts off this is the same as the first one did and then on that and of four we hit we’re going to do this little double stop thing a little dyad. So we’re going to take our first finger and barre the fifth fret of the D and the G string… and that’s tied to the downbeat of the fourth measure… Then from there we’re going to take our third finger on the and of one and we’re going to barre it on the seventh fret of the A and D string, back to the fifth fret of the D and G string… then our third finger will barre the seventh fret of the D and the G strings and then we strum it again and bend and release back to the fifth fret, back to the seventh and that’s the whole thing and it just repeats…
Conclusion
All right so there you have it, three cool riffs from KISS that are not too tough to play. I kind of mixed up a little bit; the first one is off of the album Lick It Up, which is the first album they did after they took the makeup off and they kind of really changed their sound. And then of course Firehouse and God Of Thunder from the classic era of kiss, my favorite era. 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. Tell that is all I have for you today. Thanks for watching and have a great day.
