Learn to play two easy melody line riffs from Aces High by Iron Maiden 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’ this classic tonight.
Introduction
How’s it going everybody? This is Darrin with GuitarControl.com bringing this video lesson and today I want to show you two different riffs from the intro from the song Aces High by Iron Maiden. So these are pretty easy to play, they really good and they’re in a harmony. This is just to show you how you can have just a repeating sequence of notes that are just played over and over and over again, but when you hear it in context of the song it sounds like there’s more going on because of what’s happening behind the little melody line when they change chords and stuff. So be sure to click on the link in the description for the tabs and let’s get close up and take a look.
Aces High Riff – Part 1
All right so for this first part here we’re going to start off on the sixth fret of the D string and I’m using my third finger and we’re gonna go six to seven and then we’re gonna go to the G string to the fourth fret; so this is why you want to use your fingers here… So we go six seven and then four on the G string and then back to the sixth fret of the D string… back to the third fret of the G string; so I’m just going to roll my third finger up and then back to the fourth fret of the G string and that’s the riff right there… and then it just repeats… Okay so you have to make sure you include in here is this timing and this is all made up of eighth notes and this very first one is on starting on the and of four so it’s like and one and two and, and then on the downbeat of three we rest, on the and of three we go to the fourth fret here on the G string and then on the downbeat of four we rest and then on the and of four we’re back to the six again… and it just repeats like that so it just sounds like the same thing over and over and over again… which it is more or less, but like I said it’s because of what’s happening behind it, so that riff just keeps repeating like that, the riff itself is an odd grouping so since we’re starting on that and of four and the riff ends on the and of four of the second measure and then it just more or less just repeats a total of six times and then on the seventh time it has the change where it ends… So at the last time through, you know six to 4 on the G string, back to 4 on the D string, to 6, 4, 6, 7, 6, 6, 6, 4 and then to that six on the D string, six, seven, four, seven, six and then that just rings out… and then that’s where it goes into the next part.
Aces High Riff – Part 2
Alright, so for part two, and again this is all harmonized so we’re just looking at the parts that are the melody. So if you playing this by yourself this is the part you would want to play on this second part and on the first part you want to the part that I’m playing is the melody and then the second part is the harmony. So for the melody for this part we’re going to start off we’re going to be able to transition right from where we were at… so we ended on the sixth fret of the D string with our third finger; so now we’re going to move up here and our second finger is going to go to the fifth fret of the G string and then our first finger is going to go onto the fourth fret of the G string. So we start off on the downbeat of one and we have the fifth fret and it’s a dotted quarter note so it’s one, two and three, and four and. So when we go to four and then to the fifth fret we pick and pull back to the fourth fret twice… then we’re going to go to the fifth fret of the B string; so I’m just going to keep my first finger here where it is and I’m going to move my second finger up here to the fifth fret of the B string and pick that twice and then back to the fifth fret of the G string. So this is like one, two, three, four and then that would go on to the next part and that’s the first two measures. Okay so then starting on the third measure it’s kind of like the first measure so we start on the fifth fret of the G string and it’s a dotted quarter note; so it’s one, two, and then on the and of two go to the fourth fret and then on the downbeat of three back to the fifth fret and we pick and pull and then back to five again as a quarter note for beat four… then we go back to the fourth fret of the G string where our first finger already is… we hit that on the downbeat of one and then on the and of one we go to the seventh fret of the G string and I’m gonna use my fourth finger and that’s and two and, and then on the downbeat of three we go to the fifth fret of the B string with my second finger, three, and on the and of three we go back to the seventh fret of the G string down to four, the fifth fret of the G string, and the and of four is the fourth fret of the G string and then that whole thing just repeats four times and then from that point it would go into the verse of the song.
Conclusion
Alright so there you have it. Two different riffs for the intro of Aces High by Iron Maiden and I said these aren’t very difficult to play and they’re fun to play and they sound really good, especially in context, if you’re just playing it by yourself it doesn’t really sound as cool as it does when you have it in the context of the song; so this is a good one to pull up the original song and play along with it because the tempo isn’t very fast on the intro part and when it goes to part two the tempo speeds up, but it’s still not too terribly tough. If you’re having some trouble just do it on YouTube and you can slow the speed down, you know, like three quarter or half speed or whatever you need to do to make it work. All right 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 two easy melody line riffs from Aces High and have a great day.
