Learn to play 3 fun & easy riffs by Skid Row with Guitar Control instructor Darrin Goodman. Be sure to get the free tabs to go along with the step by step video instruction and rock some Skid Row tonight!
Introduction
Hey everybody how’s it going? This is Darrin with GuitarControl.com bringing you this video lesson. Today I want to show you how to play three cool riffs from Skid Row. So these are great sounding riffs and they’re not too terribly difficult to play; a couple of them have sections that are they’re kind of iffy for a beginner, but we’ll explain that when we get there. So be sure to click on the link in the description for the tabs and let’s get close up and take a look.
Skid Row Riff-1 18 & Life
Alright so the very first one we want to look at is 18 & Life and for this one we’re switching to a clean tone. We start off with a C sharp minor (C#m) barre chords; so I’ve got my first finger barred at the fourth fret across the first four strings and my middle finger is on the fifth fret of the B string, my third finger is on the sixth fret of the D string and my fourth finger is on the sixth fret of the G string… So we start off by playing the A string, B string, G string and then back to the A string and that’s like one and two and, and then starting on the downbeat of three we have this chord which is B over C sharp (B/C#) and we’re just going to remove our second, third and fourth fingers and just leave our first finger barred and now we’re going to go; B, G, D, A and then a hammer-on to the sixth fret of the A string with your third finger and that’s the first measure… And then starting on the second measure we put our fingers back down for the C#m again and do the same thing; A, B, G, A and then take those fingers off of the B, G, and D and then with your pinky you’re gonna reach up to the seventh fret of the low E string and then that’s the last note of that measure… And then on the third measure we go back to the C#m again, same picking, and take our fingers off again and this time we just go; B, G, D, and A, and that’s three measures… All right and then so for the last measure we’re going to come down and do an A suspended two (Asus2); so I’m on the second fret of the D string with my second finger and the second fret of the G string with my third finger and I’m going to pick the A and D strings one and… then strum the chord which is a quarter note so it’s one and two, and then we’re gonna come here like we’re doing a B5 power chord; so our first finger is on the second fret of the A string, third finger is on the fourth fret of the D string and fourth finger is on the fourth fret of the G string and you want the high E and B strings to be open and now we pick again; A, D and strum the whole thing… and then it would just repeat…
Skid Row Riff-2 Monkey Business
All right next we’re going to look at is the opening riff for Monkey Business. So for this one here I’m using an overdrive tone, but I’ve got my volume backed off on the guitar so it’s a little bit more of almost kind of like a bluesy sound. So with our third finger we’re gonna do a slide from nowhere and we’re gonna use our third finger to basically barre the A and the D string and we’re gonna do a slide from nowhere to the fourth fret and then we’re going to follow that by barring the second fret of the D and G string with our first finger and then use our third finger to go to barre the fourth fret of the D and G strings and that’s like the first measure… And then beginning on the second measure, and this is one of the more difficult parts, we’re barring the D and G string and we’re going to strum that and we’re going to do a hammer-on to the third fret with our second finger and then pull back off… and then follow that with our third finger back to the A and D string fourth fret, first finger back down to the second fret of the A and D string and then back to the fourth fret… Okay then from there we do that same thing again we do this slide from nowhere to four back to the second fret of the D and G, back to the fourth fret of the D and G strings and then back to the second fret again and we do that same thing; so the riff you actually play through it twice it looks different on the transcription because the very beginning of it here this actually starts on the and of three, so it’s like… And then on that last one we’re going to go to the second fret of the D and G string and we’re going to strum that and slide to the fourth fret then on the and of four we play the A and D string open… and then barre the second fret of the A and D string and then that rings out and then the whole thing just kind of would repeat when the vocals start…
Skid Row Riff-3 Rattlesnake Shake
All right and then the last one we’re going to look at is riff from Rattlesnake Shake. Now this one as far as just playing the notes and everything is fairly simple, but it has a bunch of pinch harmonics in it and I’m going to attempt to always hit the pinch harmonics, but it does just doesn’t always work out that way and if this is something that’s new to you to learn how to do pinch harmonics it’s too in-depth to really kind of go into right here, but there are other lessons on this channel about how to do this; but in a sense what it is that if I hit a note trying to do is you choke up on the pick enough that when you pick the guitar pick picks the string the very edge of your thumb also touches the string and just depending upon where you’re at is you know where you’ll get it and what kind of like the your tone setting and what kind of pickups you have, there’s a lot of things that vary to make that easier like active pickups, my guitars that have active electronics are much easier to hit the pinch harmonics. All right so with this one we’re going to start off with our first finger on the second fret of the A string and we’re gonna play the low E string open palm muted and then we hit the second fret of the A string not palm muted and then back to one more palm muted low E string. So keep your first finger where it is and then put your fourth finger onto the fifth fret of the A string and one more palm muted open low E string and then to the fourth fret of the A string with your third finger and you want to try to hit the harmonic there and that’s the first measure… Now that’s a quarter note so it’s beat number four and then that’s tied to the downbeat of one on the next measure. So you’ve got that ringing out and then you hit the low E string back to the fourth fret of the a low E to the fifth fret of the A string with a pinch harmonic and that’s like half of the riff. Then on the third measure it’s the same as the first measure with the exception of one thing; so we’ve got the two palm muted open low E’s and then when we go to the fifth fret and we hit the harmonic and try to bend it simultaneously followed by the open low E to the fourth fret and that’s the first three measures which is like the majority of this part of the riff… Okay and then to end it on the fourth measure you’re gonna take your second finger put it on the third fret of the A string and your first finger onto the second fret of the D string and we pick this; A, D, G and like you’re doing an E minor, second fret of the A string and second fret of the D string and then with your third finger hit the third fret of the low E string with some vibrato and then it just starts over again…
Conclusion
All right so there you have it, three not too terribly difficult to play, but highly recognizable riffs by Skid Row. 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.
