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CLASSIC ROCK AND METAL GUITAR RIFFS

(AND HOW TO WRITE THEM)

by Jehannum

2 About this guide

What is a riff? 3 What makes a classic riff?

What makes a riff classic? 4 What was the first classic rock guitar riff? How do composers come up with riffs? 6 Simplicity, subtlety and sophistication 7 The role of the musical ear Pin the tail on the riff 9 How to use this knowledge in your own riffs Fascinating rhythms 12 Syncopation 14 Making songs from riffs 15 Riff ideas from other sources 15 Riff variation and development 17 Two guitars are better than one Dropped tunings Riff embellishments 19 Forgetting about theory Riffs designed to solo over 20 Using different time signatures 21 Appendix

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About this guide My main aim is to show how the skill of riff writing can be learned by example. I also want to celebrate riff-based music and acknowledge some of the composers who have helped shape rock and metal. I have included some of my own riffs not because they stand alongside the greats but because I can explain how I made them. I’ve yet to come up with a genuine classic riff but I’m still trying. To play the examples you’ll need to be able to read guitar tablature. To follow the explanations you’ll need to know a little terminology and music theory. The Appendix covers tab reading and just enough theory to get by. The most important practical things you should work on are timing, clean playing, and phrasing. Try to listen to the example riffs in their original form. Most are easy to source online. Studio recordings sound clearer than live performances but watching videos can help you with exact fingerings. Behind almost every brilliant guitar riff is a great bass line and drumbeat. To go into the intricacies of these is beyond the scope of this guide. I mostly focus on guitar riffs as standalone entities. The examples in this guide were prepared using Guitar Pro 6.

What is a riff? You and I already know what a riff is, but the Oxford English Dictionary says it is:

a short repeated phrase in popular music and jazz, frequently played over changing chords or harmonies or used as a background to a solo improvisation.

The word riff originated in jazz circles in the 1930s and may have come from the word refrain, a term meaning a repeated chorus or musical phrase in a song. The equivalent term in classical music is ostinato, from the Italian for ‘stubborn’ or ‘obstinate’. Guitar riffs are a defining feature of heavy rock and metal music. They combine elements of melody, harmony and rhythm to form a recognisable entity which is repeated throughout a song.

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What makes a classic riff? Classic riffs have passed the test of time. Any riff that has been remembered for thirty or fifty years must have something special. That ‘something’ is what we’re looking for. By focusing on older music we have the luxury of hindsight to decide on a riff’s true classic status. In recent years metal has fragmented into a diverse and confusing number of sub-genres, none of which is dominant. Many of these sub-genres are deliberately pushing metal into a less accessible sound. Extreme forms of metal are less likely to yield ‘classic’ riffs because that word implies a catchiness which its composers are avoiding. It is not our intended task to document the riff styles of contemporary metal sub-genres. However, this is not to say great riffs are no longer being written. ‘Seven Nation Army’ by The White Stripes is just one example of an excellent recent rock riff. A classic riff may have influenced future music, in which case there will be a trail of influences leading back to it, adding to its status (e.g. the verse riff from Black Sabbath’s ‘Into the Void’ influencing the whole genre of doom metal).

What makes a riff classic? The most successful riffs have a catchiness of rhythm, harmony, melody or phrasing. They become a hook, something that makes a listener want to hear the song again. AC/DC’s ‘Back in Black’ has one of the best-known hook riffs in rock. It creates the groove and sets the mood. When I hear that riff it makes me want to pick up my guitar and play. Some riffs are so memorable they take on the characteristics of a meme. They are immediately recognisable and have a virtually independent life outside the song. The most famous example is Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke on the Water’. It follows that memorability is the measure of a riff’s success. Achieving this should be the goal of the riff writer, but how can it be achieved? It is clear that many famous riffs are musically simple: Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’; Led Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lotta Love’. Could their simplicity be the secret of their catchiness? Partly, yes, but it’s not the whole story. If simplicity alone was needed then every novice songwriter would be writing classic riffs from the start. A riff needs something more, something that makes it stand out. What exactly that is is a difficult but interesting question.

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What was the first classic rock guitar riff? As you can guess, there’s no single answer to this question, but if you’re thinking about origins of rock you should definitely check out the music of Chuck Berry, The Beatles, and The Kinks for clear examples of the distorted electric guitar riff as we know it today. If you want to explore the beginnings of metal you should surely study the work of Tony Iommi.

How do composers come up with riffs? Composers often struggle to explain where their ideas come from. They’ll say that their great song was written after five minutes’ jamming. Sometimes they’ll tell you a little about their compositional process but you still feel there’s something missing, some secret that they’re not willing to give up. In fact it’s probably not unwillingness; it’s inability. A composer’s work comes from subconscious processes: an amalgam of influences, ideas, dreams and mental draughts. A great-sounding riff may appear to spring out of the guitar, fully-formed. To verbalise the process would be impossible. If subconscious processes are the key to great riff-writing it makes sense to nurture them. One enjoyable way of doing this is to listen closely to a lot of riff-based music. Mentally pick out notes and chords, listen for quirks or subtleties. Even if you don’t know the names of the notes and chords you will absorb their sound. The greater the variety of music you listen to, the more material your brain has to work on. While you’re asleep your mind assimilates what you’ve learned, so don’t skimp on sleep. Next time you pick up a guitar, a riff might just appear as if out of nowhere just like it did with many of the greats. But it may be that the subconscious needs a little help. In this guide we concentrate on the conscious processes you can use to make and enhance riffs. We will need to study and analyse several examples. With a little theory we can reverse-engineer them and see what makes them work. Take ‘Smoke on the Water’ as our first example:

This riff is so simple that many beginning guitar players stumble into playing it while improvising. Often, though, they get it wrong. First of all they are likely to play it with a plectrum whereas the riff’s creator, Ritchie Blackmore, plays it with thumb and first finger of

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the picking hand. Try it both ways and you should hear that the fingerstyle technique adds considerable tightness to the sound. Beginners who have not yet developed their ear for music may attempt to play it using the more common root-and-5th power chords instead of the 4th dyads that Blackmore actually wrote (see the Appendix for an explanation of these terms). Here’s one way to play it wrong: The difference in sound is the difference between a great riff and a good riff. Perhaps this is not a coincidence; perhaps one of the things that mark out a great riff is this kind of subtlety. The unusual sound of the plucked power chords, all in their first inversion (5 1), makes the riff stand out. When we play it with regular power chords (1 5) it sounds a lot more ordinary. The riff is in the key of G minor. It begins and ends on a G5 chord so it feels resolved and self-contained. It starts off in a somewhat banal way, almost like the chant of Frère Jacques, until chord number six breaks the rhythm and adds a bluesy feel thanks to the Db5 (Db is the ‘blue note’ in the key of G). When we substitute any other chord or note for the Db5 it sounds weaker. A D note, for example, turns the riff into a sort of middle-of-the-road American soap theme from the 1970s. It’s the tritone interval of Db above G that gives the riff its attitude. The same interval is found in many famous metal riffs from ‘Black Sabbath’ to ‘Enter Sandman’. The eighth note rests between each chord helps give the chords definition, adding to the tightness of the fingerstyle technique. The riff has a simple structure which we can break down into four parts. The first three parts have the same ascending (G5 Bb5 C5) phrase, the first and third parts being identical. The second part has a Db5 inserted before the C5. The fourth part breaks the pattern with its final-sounding iii – I cadence. It may not be too fanciful to suggest the four parts of the riff are making a statement, something like: ‘this is true, this is really true, this is true, so there!’

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Simplicity, subtlety and sophistication ‘Smoke on the Water’ is, on the surface (no pun intended), a simple riff, yet it does not sound as though it was written by a beginner. The subtlety of the chord voicings and the fingerstyle execution give it a unique sound. We have said that simplicity is one factor in making a riff memorable. Let’s add subtlety and sophistication to the equation. An excellent example of a fairly sophisticated piece of music that sounds simple is ‘Layla’ by Derek and the Dominos. We start with a riff made up of hammer ons and power chords: This melody, already strong, is doubled an octave higher on a second guitar: Then there’s a further doubling another octave higher, and a full bend up to G over the Bb5 power chord (slightly off the beat of the lower guitar because of the preceding dotted note – another example of subtlety): This is accompanied by yet another guitar line that mostly ‘completes’ the power chords of the first guitar (i.e. adding thirds to the D5, C5, Bb5, etc. power chords to make them into full chords). The bass guitar adds another line throughout. What at first appears to be simple is actually made up of several layers of music, each of which complements the others. Listener interest is increased because there is a lot going on. Maintaining interest is something you have to consider carefully with riffs that are repeated many times.

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The role of the musical ear It should be clear that in ‘Layla’ all of the separate elements combine to form a cracking riff. When writing multi-part songs you could use music theory to come up with the accompanying lines, but an experienced guitar player can often jam one without much conscious thought. Even if he did not know the chord and note names his ear would do the work. We can use theory to help write parts. To a simple power chord progression we could add thirds to make them into full chords, or we could harmonise it with fourths or sevenths or whatever else we choose. However, if our musical ear is fairly well developed we can quite easily add parts to many riffs almost automatically. Try humming over a repeated unaccompanied riff to see if you can create another line. If so, you can use the same method to create a bass line, vocal melody and guitar solo once you have a backing riff in place. If you find this difficult, work on your training your ear. Listen to music more closely. Try to pick out separate complementary melodic voices. Use some of the excellent ear training tools available on the internet. Your riffs can then become foundation stones on which you can build songs. When the riff is right, the rest can follow quickly. Perhaps this goes some way to explaining those great songs written in five minutes by untrained musicians.

Pin the tail on the riff We saw that ‘Smoke on the Water’ was divided into four parts, the final part being different. Changing a riff at the end to form a tail is a frequently used device. The first riff in AC/DC’s ‘Back in Black’s has two tails: Thinking of the riff as two 2-bar sections, we see that both sections consist of a harmonic figure followed by a melodic tail. Notice how humour is brought in, first with the effortless fall down the pentatonic scale and then with the halting climb back up the chromatic. This

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puts me in mind of a slapstick routine or a cartoon cat falling down a well and then dragging itself back up. In the simplest cases a single tail goes at the end to form the riff, as in ‘Smoke on the Water’. Imagine ‘Back in Black’ with just the first tail repeated. Does it sound as strong? In my opinion it doesn’t. The juxtaposition of two different tails enhances the riff. The hook riff of Metallica’s ‘Sad but True’ has a tail that turns into an important linking motif between song sections. (Note: the guitar is tuned to D standard)

The tail in the last two beats of bar 5 is extended on the second repeat. This pauses the groove of the song. The held note, C, a minor seventh above the tonic, adds tension and expectation. The bend up to the tonic D and away again gives a teasing hint of resolution. The extended tail also serves as a link to the next section of the song, which is introduced with a rhythmic figure of dead notes (very heavy palm muting), doubled on the drums:

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How to use this knowledge in your own riffs Most of the methods of riff writing we cover in this guide are compositional techniques. Note the parallels with learning the techniques of lead guitar. You can learn vibrato, pull offs, hammer ons, bends, tremolo arm tricks, pinch harmonics, two handed tapping and sweep picking, but you should use them in a considered and tasteful way. It would be ridiculous to use every trick you have learned in one solo. Likewise, it would be counterproductive to use every compositional device you know in a single riff. If your subconscious has been at work it won’t take much thought to jam for a while and come up with a reasonable riff. This is where you could use one or two of the techniques you have learned to refine the riff to make it stand out more.

Fascinating rhythms Some tunes are recognisable from their rhythm alone. Tap out the rhythm to ‘Happy Birthday’ to a friend and see if they recognise it. If you give a riff a unique rhythm it will probably be memorable. Rhythm is the domain of drums. Think of the drum intro to ‘Run to the Hills’ by Iron Maiden. It makes the song identifiable even before a guitar note has been played. Transposing a great rhythmic idea to guitar would be one way to write an excellent riff. Rhythm is often the starting point in writing a riff when jamming. Thrash riffs are often based on the ‘chug’ (down-picking, palm muting) on a single note or power chord:

Without variety, this kind of riff can become boring. It is certainly not unique and it doesn’t stand out in any way. But it isn’t difficult to vary the rhythm by missing out certain notes. Even doing this at random will introduce some rhythmic interest:

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It is possible to build riffs from blocks of notes punctuated by rests. In terms of eighth notes you could describe a pattern with custom notation such as 3-1-2-1-2-2 to represent a 2-bar riff. You could use all sorts of note values and tempos. You could create increasingly mathematically intricate patterns against the drums using numbers from the Fibonacci sequence, or random card numbers from shuffled decks. But this kind of thing wasn’t done when the classic riffs were being written. In any case, what do you get in return for added rhythmic complexity beyond a certain point? Reduced listenability. If you want to limit your music to a small group of ‘elite’ listeners this is the way to go. A classic example of a rhythm riff is found in ‘Disposable Heroes’ by Metallica:

Harmonically and melodically this riff is nothing special, yet the rapid alternately-picked rhythm (not forgetting James Hetfield’s superb tone and precise execution) makes it exceptional and unforgettable. The martial rhythm reinforces the song’s subject matter. Using a military-sounding drum figure in this way is a good example of how you can find inspiration from other sources. The gallop rhythm is another staple of classic metal rhythm guitar. It features heavily in the back catalogue of Iron Maiden and many other bands of the 1980s. A gallop is made up of three notes, with the last two played twice as quickly as the first. In the example above the gallop consists of an eighth note followed by two sixteenth notes (also note its use in ‘Disposable Heroes’). You play the first two notes with downstrokes and the third with an upstroke. This leaves your hand in position to repeat the pattern quickly. The name ‘gallop’ comes from the resemblance to the sound of a running horse. Guitarists of a certain age will remember the theme to the 60s Western series Bonanza, which made

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effective and appropriate use of the gallop. A slower version can be found in the bass line of the verses in Black Sabbath’s ‘Heaven and Hell’. Contrast the three gallop bars with the fourth bar, which contains triplets. Triplets are three notes played in the usual time of two. Unlike a gallop, all notes in a triplet have the same duration. In the example, three notes are played in the time of two eighth notes. A little arithmetic tells us that the notes in the triplet are therefore ‘twelfth notes’. The rhythmic effect of inserting triplets into a musical phrase is disruptive since the second and third notes do not fall on the usual beats. The effect is somewhat akin to slamming on the brakes of the music, and the last bar forms an interesting tail to the riff. Triplets can sometimes inject a funky or jaunty feel to a rhythm. Below is another example of the use of triplets. Gtr 1 plays a rhythm riff composed of simple time notes (quarter notes and eighth notes). Gtr 2 joins in with a lead riff composed entirely of triplets. Notice that Gtr 2’s melody is made up of a series of 2-note units: a melody note followed by a pedal tone (the open D string) which does not follow the 1-2-3 of the triplet. These rhythms play against each other to yield an interesting sound. The listener can either focus on the rhythm or the lead, or try to follow both at the same time.

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Syncopation Most rock music is written in 4/4, which means its beat is counted as:

“ONE two three four” The numbered beats are known as downbeats. The points midway between downbeats are called upbeats. Syncopation is the accenting of notes on the upbeat. We can vocalise syncopation like this: “one AND two AND three AND four AND”. Playing on the upbeat is the defining feature of reggae. Some subgenres of metal, such as funk metal and djent, also exploit syncopation. Syncopation can be introduced by using rests on the downbeats and notes on the upbeats. Let’s look at a riff that uses syncopation by putting rests on the upbeat: The drum notation is included to show how the straight “ONE two three four” played on alternating kick and snare drums is interleaved by the rhythm guitar. The guitar mostly plays in the gaps between drumbeats. To achieve this in musical notation the riff starts off with an eighth note rest. The syncopated feel of this riff gives it a sort of laid-back intensity. As an exercise, try removing the rest at the start of each bar and modifying the remainder of the bar to fit. This will remove the syncopation. You should hear that the swagger of the riff is much reduced and it sounds somewhat leaden and plodding. Could the reverse process work? Could we simply add a rest in front of a unsyncopated riff to make it syncopated, thereby improving it? Consider the follow example:

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At the moment, the quarter note rest at the end of the bar makes the riff sound very stop-start. That’s a whole beat without music! There is a fairly nice harmonic progression going on but the rhythm is lumpen and uninspiring. Let’s add an eighth note rest to the start of each bar. This will put the chords on the upbeats. The quarter note rests at the end will have to change to eighth note rests. If we do this we still get two eighth note rests in succession, at the end and start of each bar, which still sounds stop-start. Let’s make the rest at the end into a chord instead: This is an improvement over the original but the three chords at the end of each bar still sound a little childish or ham-fisted. We could try a variation on the gallop:

Note the palm-muting added to the first sixteenth note in each bar which gives the riff a little more spring in its step. You discover tricks like this when you play a riff over and over while developing it. That is when elements of your own style start to get thrown into the mix. I wouldn’t say this riff is going to be remembered throughout the annals of time, but it’s a decent B-grade or C-grade thing that could find a home in a song somewhere. You could even try developing it a little further.

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Making songs from riffs Occasionally you may have a flash of inspiration and write a song from start to finish in one sitting. If not, there are alternatives. One way is to just jam out a lot of riffs, record them and put the best ones together later. Here’s a work process for a riff-writing session:

1. Make sure you’re ready to record your guitar 2. Jam around with various rhythms, chords, powerchords, oddly-shaped dyads, single

note melodies or licks. Use your imagination, allow your subconscious to take over. Try altering the sound settings on your amp. Add effects like reverb, chorus, and delay. Sometimes getting a particular sound can inspire you.

3. If and when you get something that sounds like it might be a good riff, record it.

Repeat the riff for about a minute for the recording, perhaps experimenting with variations, then save it under a meaningful title like ‘metal chug riff #373’.

4. Forget that riff completely and repeat steps 2 to 4 until you feel your creativity has

waned so much that you’re not coming up with anything good If you can come up with 8 to 10 riffs in an hour’s session you’re doing well. Leave it for a few days, then play the riffs back. Give each one a grade from A to D. Only give a D if you’re sure it’s uninspired, derivative or uninteresting. Bin the D-grade ones and put the others into separate folders for each grade. When you want to write a song, listen through your grade A riffs. Which one fires your enthusiasm and inspiration? Look for other riffs (grade A, B, or C) that could go with it. You may want to use a different riff for each song section: intro, verse, chorus, bridge, hook, solo; or you may decide on the minimalist approach and just use a couple of riffs throughout. If you have two grade A riffs in a song you’re well on the way. You’ll have an easier time when riffs are in the same key, rhythm and tempo. If not, you’ll have to work out transitions between them; linking sections to smooth out the changes. Often this won’t work well because the transition slows the song down too much. Transitions usually work best before an instrumental section and worst between verse and chorus. Remember that great songs can be made up of seemingly mismatched parts (‘Bohemian Rhapsody’). Upon repeated listening, the ear becomes more accustomed to sudden changes. If you’re having trouble with step 2 (jamming out riffs) then either you’re having an off day or you’re not yet ready to write songs. You may be still at the stage where you need to be listening to, thinking about, and experimenting with riffs.

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Riff ideas from other sources Instead of just focusing on rock and metal, try to vary the genres of music you listen to. Go outside the rock and metal sphere: classical, jazz, blues, dance music, Gregorian chant. Sounds that can become influences are everywhere. Try listening to ‘The Firebird’ by Igor Stravinksy for interesting syncopated rhythms or ‘Family Affair’ by Mary J Blige for establishing a groove. One off-the-wall idea for getting musical inspiration is listening to the radio with the volume turned down so low you can’t actually recognise the tune – you will hear only fragments of harmony and rhythm. Your musical mind will fill in the gaps in interesting ways which you can then capture and use in your own creations.

Riff variation and development In the riff recording process above I said you should vary the riff as you’re recording it. The aim of this is to facilitate slight improvisational changes that might improve the riff. And when you play it back later you may hear new possibilities you can experiment with. A riff can also undergo variation within a song. It could be that the mood of the song changes, or perhaps the full chords used for the solo riff sound too mushy when lead guitar or vocals are added so you switch to power chords. It could be that you simply want to maintain listener interest by adding variety. Variation may take the form of tempo changes, different chord voicings, key changes, added parts, changing from simple rhythm to triplets, or added guitar distortion. It can have a powerful musical effect. In the Alfred Hitchcock film Spellbound, composer Miklos Rozsa uses a love theme and a ‘psychosis’ theme that are variations of each other but which have very different functions to support the narrative. In ‘To Tame a Land’ Iron Maiden vary a riff (first heard at 1:36) to good effect. This makes the song take a sinister-sounding turn (at 2:17). The tone of the song is darkened even more when the riff is transposed down a whole tone later on. It is worth considering the ways in which the two variants differ to achieve the intended effect, so rhythm and lead guitar tabs for both are presented overleaf. The question of how the darkening in sound is achieved is not an easy one. To my ear it is down to the closer intervals of the second melody acting as a slightly ‘cracked’ version of the first (which itself is memorable enough for the contrast to be made by the listener).

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The variant riff is as follows:

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Two guitars are better than one Two guitarists playing complementary riffs is a staple of the NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal) sound. Countless examples can be found from the late seventies through the eighties in the works of Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. Many of their classic riffs consist of melodic figures harmonised at intervals such as thirds or fourths. Come up with a simple melodic figure and record it. Then work out the notes a certain interval above or below and record this on a second guitar. You can keep the second guitar a fixed number of frets away, but this will mean some of the notes will not be diatonic (in the same scale as the first guitar), which may sound odd. To solve this you will have to alter some intervals (by changing them from major to minor for example) to stay ‘in key’.

Dropped tunings In the 1970s Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler began to tune to C# standard (all strings tuned three semitones lower than normal) for a number of songs including ‘Children of the Grave’, ‘Snowblind’ and ‘Supernaut’. This certainly made string bending easier for Iommi’s industrially-injured fingertips, but it was surely the perceived increase in ‘heaviness’ that made the band return to this tuning time and time again. Here, as they were many times, Sabbath proved to be influential. From the 1990s onwards there have been many metal bands that play in altered tunings. As well as the ‘standard’ alternative tunings, where all strings are altered by the same amount, there are the ‘drop’ tunings, where one or more strings are detuned by different intervals. Dropped D (DADGBE) was a particular favourite of 90s metal. Pantera used it on ‘Primal Concrete Sledge’ and several other songs. It makes (1 5) power chords easy to play because the 1 and 5 will be on the same fret on the two lowest strings. Investigate whether your favourite bands use altered tunings and experiment with them. It’s more difficult to know what chords or notes you’re playing but it can be very refreshing to hear new sounds coming from familiar fretboard patterns.

Riff embellishments There are a number of simple ways of making a riff sound fresher or more distinctive. I wouldn’t call these compositional techniques; they are more like embellishments, but as we saw with ‘Smoke on the Water’, subtleties sometimes make a big difference. Embellishments can become part of your signature style – think the trills of Tony Iommi in the early Sabbath recordings.

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Many of these techniques have parallels in lead guitar playing, and most will be easiest to achieve with power chords or other dyads because only two fingers are necessary to play them. Bends and chord bends In blues and its derivatives, lead guitarists often bend notes to achieve an emotional impact. The rhythm guitarist can also utilise bends on chords, although the effect is harder to predict. Sliding between chords When transistioning between chords, try sounding the intervening notes to achieve a smooth legato effect. Sometimes this can add a dark, sneaky feel to a progression. Sometimes it can sound carefree. Experimentation is the key to finding your own uses for this technique. Chord vibrato Learning to apply to your own style of vibrato to certain chords in a riff can add interesting and subtle effects. Palm muting Palm muting involves resting the palm of the picking hand lightly on the strings near the bridge of the guitar. This dampens the sustain of the strings, giving a percussive sound that is useful for rhythmic music such as thrash metal. Up-picking and down-picking Whether you up-pick or down-pick chords has a subtle but noticeable effect on the sound. As we saw when examining ‘Smoke on the Water’, subtlety of sound can be important to getting the best out of a riff.

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Forgetting about theory We have seen how a musical ear can come up with accompanying melodies and harmonies without the need for theory. Standard music theory is just one way of looking at the sounds you’re playing. You could see the fretboard as a mathematical grid with symmetries and asymmetries, reflections and rotations. You could experiment with playing patterns on the grid; flipping them over or turning them around. You don’t have to know the name of every note you play. As long as your note choice is not completely random there will be some logical sense perceptible in the music. Sometimes it’s fun to experiment without worrying about keys, intervals and accidentals. The following riff contains four chromatically-descending power chords (D#, D, C#, C). Between these power chords there’s a pattern of notes that wasn’t written with any theory in mind – it just comes easily to the fingers. Note: the ‘9’ above the note groups means that nine notes are played in the usual time of eight.

Riffs designed to solo over In a rock or metal song there is usually a guitar solo. Can we write riffs that make the lead guitarist’s job easier? The more complex the riff, the more difficult it is to play lead over. Songs like Metallica’s ‘Blackened’ pose a challenge because of all the accidentals, key changes, tempo and meter changes. This can be great but there may come a point where the lead player is so intent on keeping up with the complexities of the harmony that it means he isn’t expressing anything meaningful to the song.

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If we want to write riffs specifically to ease soloing there is a number of things we can do:

⋅ Use chords built on the degrees of the minor or major key, not accidentals or borrowed chords. Unless the song calls for a big change of feel, stay in the original key.

⋅ Use power chords rather than full chords. This will give the lead more note choices over each chord without dissonance. The lead player will have more room and confidence to improvise.

⋅ Focus on harmony. Don’t embellish the riff with melodic flourishes; they will only get in the way of the lead.

These ‘rules’ are restrictive. Lots of musicians have an in-built rejection of restrictive rules. However, sometimes limiting options is helpful for moving forward. Of course, in music, any or all restrictions can be ignored. If you try recording a riff based on a simple descending E5, D5, C5, A5 progression in 4/4 with a little distortion to flesh out the power chords, you will find it very easy to solo over. The trade-off is that the riff is somewhat boring and clichéd, so it will be up to the lead player to make the song shine.

Using different time signatures Some riffs don’t follow the usual “1 – 2 – 3 – 4” count of 4/4 time. Probably the most oft-quoted example is ‘Money’ by Pink Floyd. You can use different times signatures in your riffs but you should never force a riff out of its natural meter or it will sound deliberate and pretentious. In the world of rock non-4/4 ideas are fairly rare outside specialist sub-genres such as math rock. It may be worth looking elsewhere for inspiration. For example, Lalo Schifrin’s ‘Mission Impossible’ theme or Jerry Goldsmith’s title music to the film Capricorn One.

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Appendix To study riffs you’ll need to read guitar tablature. You’ll also have to know a little about intervals, chords and keys. This appendix is a crash course, a guide within the guide, covering just enough to let you follow the explanations in the main text. If you find music theory interesting or useful you can take it much further and deeper.

Reading tab: the basics This guide shows riffs in both standard musical notation (on top) and tablature (below). Notation is useful to show the time values and phrasing of notes. Tablature is useful because it shows (if the tab is accurate) the exact playing position on the fretboard. This is sometimes crucial to getting the sound of a riff exactly right.

Fig A1: Seven bars of music illustrating note symbols Figure A1 shows seven bars (or ‘measures’ in American usage) of music. Bars are delineated with a vertical bar line across the stave. Bar lines make music easier to read and navigate. The tempo (speed) is given as 120 beats per minute. Each beat will therefore last half a second. The 4/4 written in the first bar is the time signature. It gives information about the pulse pattern of the music. The ‘4’ on top means that there are four beats in every bar. The pulse will then repeat in the next bar. The ‘4’ below means that quarter notes will be used as the beat. Bar 3 is made up of four quarter notes. From the time signature we know there are four beats in the bar and that the beat is a quarter note. We therefore know these four notes will completely fill the bar.

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Bar 4 is made up of 8 eighth notes, bar 5 is made up of 16 sixteenth notes. Bar 2 is made up of two half notes. Bar 1 is made up of a whole note, which lasts four times longer than a quarter note and (in 4/4 time) takes up a bar by itself. Bars 6 and 7 contain dotted notes. A dot after a note symbol increases its length by half. So a quarter note that lasts one beat will last one and a half beats if dotted. A half note that lasts two beats will last three beats if dotted. As an exercise, check that the total number of beats in bars 6 and 7 are correct. The curled symbol at the left of the first bar is the treble clef. It indicates the pitch range of the music notation. Guitar music is traditionally written using the treble clef but notes played on the guitar actually sound an octave lower than the treble clef of the orchestra. Because of this the guitar is said to be a transposing instrument. A different clef, the bass clef, is used for lower pitched instruments such as the bass guitar. There are also symbols for rests, where the musical instrument stays silent. As with notes, there are different symbols for whole note rests, half note rests, quarter note rests, and so on:

Fig A2: Five bars illustrating rest symbols

Musical intervals Playing two notes simultaneously results in a dyad, a two-note harmony. If you try this on a guitar with two random notes you will sometimes get a pleasant sound (consonance) and sometimes a harsh, discordant sound (dissonance). The quality of the sound depends on the interval (difference in pitch or frequency) between the two notes. In modern Western music there are twelve pitches:

A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G# After G# (pronounced ‘G sharp’) the note names start again from A. Note: In certain contexts these notes have different names. A# is more commonly written as Bb (‘B flat’), for example. This is known as enharmonic equivalence. Every sharp note has an enharmonic equivalent flat note. This need not concern us too much at the moment. All we need is one name for each note.

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The following table shows the interval between A and all the pitches up to the next A (sometimes written as A’ ), going up in semitones (single frets on a guitar):

First note

Second note

Semitones apart

Interval name

Interval symbol

Sound

A A 0 unison 1 Perfect consonance A A# 1 minor second b2 Extreme dissonance

A B 2 major second 2 Mild dissonance A C 3 minor third b3 Fair consonance A C# 4 major third 3 Fair consonance A D 5 perfect fourth 4 Consonance A D# 6 tritone #4 or b5 Ambiguous A E 7 perfect fifth 5 Perfect Consonance A F 8 minor sixth b6 Fair consonance A F# 9 major sixth 6 Fair consonance A G 10 minor seventh b7 Mild dissonance

A G# 11 major seventh 7 Dissonance A A’ 12 octave 8 Perfect consonance

Fig A3: All intervals up to an octave

Like notes, intervals have different names depending on context. The tritone, much used in metal riffs, can also be called a diminished fifth, an augmented fourth, or even the devil in music! For our purposes, one name per interval will suffice. Learning the sounds of the intervals is an important step in developing your ear for harmony and melody. Some people learn them by associating each interval with a different song or tune. For example, an octave is found between the two syllables of ‘Some-where’ at the start of ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’. The Jaws theme utilises a rising minor second (and is a great example of an orchestral riff). It would be a useful exercise to compile your own list of tunes for all of the intervals up to the octave. A further challenge would be to make a tune list for the intervals in their descending form. The following diagram can help you experiment with intervals on guitar:

Figure A4: Intervals on the guitar fretboard

The root note is shown as 1 and can be played at any fret on any string. All the intervals shown on the diagram are in positions relative to the 1. They don’t correspond to fixed

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positions on the fretboard. For clarity, minor seconds, tritones and minor sixths are omitted but should be easy to find. If you want to hear what a major third sounds like, first choose a string for the root note – say the A string. Find the 1 on that string in the diagram. You can then see that a major third (symbol 3) is found on the D string, one fret down. So if you play any note on the A string and the note one fret down on the D string you will hear a major third interval. Obviously, the unison interval will have the most consonant sound (because the two notes have exactly the same pitch). You will find that the octave, fifth and fourth also have consonant sounds. The most dissonant sound comes from the minor second and major seventh intervals. The thirds and sixths were once regarded as dissonances but became accepted as consonant, showing that there is a degree of subjectivity involved. The tritone is said to have an ambiguous sound, both consonant and dissonant at the same time. Intervals up to an octave are called simple intervals. When an interval is bigger than an octave it is called a compound interval. Commonly used compound intervals include the ninth (an octave plus a second) and the eleventh (an octave plus a fourth). Compound intervals sound much like their simple equivalents.

Scales Scales are ordered sets of notes or intervals. The major scale consists of seven notes at intervals of 1 2 3 4 5 6 and 7 from the first note (see Figure A3 for the full names of these intervals). The major scale and the minor scale (formula: 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7) and its variants are the most commonly used scales in Western music. The major and minor scales are known as diatonic scales because they contain seven notes. Rock guitarists also frequently use the minor pentatonic scale (1 b3 4 5 b7) and the blues scale (1 b3 4 b5 5 b7) as a basis for improvised solos partly because they avoid some of the dissonances found in the major and minor scales. However, the blues scale has its own particular dissonance, the flat five, called the blue note which embodies much of the feel of blues music. Many guitarists memorise fretboard scale patterns to use when improvising. Figure A4 can be used to generate scale patterns from scale formulae. As an exercise try using it to produce a scale pattern for the minor pentatonic scale.

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Triads and chords When three notes are played simultaneously a triad is produced. Unlike dyads, triads are considered to be chords with full harmonic content. In general, triads have:

⋅ a root note (1) ⋅ a third, either major (3) or minor (b3)

⋅ a fifth, either perfect (5), diminished (b5) or augmented (#5) There are four types of triad: major (1 3 5), minor (1 b3 5), diminished (1 b3 b5), and augmented (1 3 #5). There are other three-note chords which are not accepted as triads such as the suspended fourth (sus4) chord (1 4 5). All triads are chords, but not all chords are triads. Chords are a more general form of harmony. They contain three or more notes played together. Examples include the major seventh (1 3 5 7) and dominant seventh (1 3 5 b7) frequently used in jazz, blues and rock. Figure A4 can also be used to construct chord shapes on the fretboard. As an exercise try constructing a minor triad (1 b3 5) with its root on the low E string. You will get a movable minor chord shape.

Power chords Power chords are a type of dyad consisting of only a root and a perfect fifth (1 5). When a power chord is played on the guitar, either note or both notes may be doubled (also played an octave higher) to give a fuller sound. Since power chords lack a third, many musicians argue that they are not true chords. Out of context they sound neither major nor minor. When played on an electric guitar with amplification and distortion they have a consonant sound rich in overtones and undertones. This is one reason for their ubiquity in metal. More complex types of chord often do not sound good on heavily distorted guitar. Another reason power chords are popular in metal is that they are more flexible to solo over than full chords. Omitting the third means there is less chance of a note clash between harmony and melody. It must be said that the main reason for the popularity of power chords is that they can be very easy to play on guitar. The following figure shows several voicings of power chords:

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The first bar shows four power chords in their simplest voicing. The second bar shows more complex forms. Doubling notes brings more variety to the sound while retaining the overall harmonic function.

Chord inversions Inversions are a change in the pitch order of notes in a chord. In the first inversion, the root note is removed and is replaced by its octave. In the figure below an A5 power chord is inverted. The fifth (E) becomes the lowest note and the root (A) the highest note. Again, this can be used to vary the sound of a riff.

Power chords have only two notes so there is only one inversion possible (5 1). Triads contain three notes (1 3 5) so can be inverted twice: in the first inversion the root is moved an octave higher and the third becomes the lowest note (3 5 1). In the second inversion both the root and third are moved an octave higher and the fifth becomes the lowest note (5 1 3).

Keys Sometimes, when listening to a tune you’ve never heard before, you can tell when it is about to end or come to a chorus. You hear a sound of finality once a certain chord or note is reached. This is because you have heard the musical resolution that your ear was expecting. A series of chords has a tendency to resolve to a certain triad. The major or minor triad that a piece of music ‘wants’ to resolve to is called its key centre. Until it resolves, the music is said to exhibit tension.

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Chord progressions If you play the following figure you should get a sense of ending on the last bar because the music (in the key of C major) has resolved to the tonic chord, C major:

A listener’s musical ear learns to recognise and expect this resolution. If a piece does not resolve it can sound incomplete or unfinished. Of course, sometimes this is the desired effect. The G to C chord change above is an example of a V to I cadence, also called an authentic cadence or perfect cadence. This chord change from the fifth chord in a key to the tonic is considered to be the strongest resolution in music. The above figure is called a ‘I – IV – V – I chord progression’. A chord progression is a sequence of chords that establish a key centre by using the notes found in a particular key and by resolving to its tonic chord. If we know what notes are in a key we can work out what chords it will contain. The key of C major contains the notes C, D, E, F, G, A and B. We can make triads and other chords out of these notes. Let’s find all the triads. The first triad has the root note C. Which note is an interval of a third up from C? We can see that E is a major third (4 semitones) up from C. Which note is a fifth up from C? G is a perfect fifth (7 semitones) up from C, so we have the intervals for a major triad (1 3 5) using the notes C, E and G, contained within the scale of C major. Moving on to the next note in the key, D, we can see F is a minor third (3 semitones) up from the root note D. We can see A is a perfect fifth (7 semitones) above D. So we have the intervals for a minor triad (1 b3 5) with notes D, F and A. Doing the same for all the degrees of C major we find that it contains these triads:

I C major C E G ii D minor D F A iii E minor E G B IV F major F A C

V G major G B D vi A minor A C E vii° B diminished B D F

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The diminished triad (1 b3 b5) on the seventh degree arises because the fifth interval up from B to F is a diminished fifth (six semitones). An uppercase Roman numeral is used where there is a major (or augmented) triad and a lowercase numeral where there is a minor (or diminished) triad. So now we know that a I – IV – V – I progression means the series of major chords built on the tonic, fourth, fifth and tonic note of the key. The Roman numeral system is often used to describe chord progressions. For instance, in the key of E minor the chord progression:

E minor G major B minor A minor would be written as i – III – v – iv. The progression could be transposed to any other minor key and it will work in the same way. For instance, when transposed to the key of A minor it would become:

A minor C major E minor D minor Roman numeral notation is useful because it allows you to discuss the way a chord progression works without tying things down to a particular key.

Finding the notes in a key Let’s see how to find out which notes are in a key, say C major. We have already seen the interval formula of the major scale is (1 2 3 4 5 6 7), which means the scale is made up of tonic, major second, major third, perfect fourth, perfect fifth, major sixth and major seventh intervals. We can use Figure A3 to find how many semitones in each interval. We can then count that number semitones up from C to find the notes. From Figure A3 we find that the intervals of the major scale contain 0, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, and 11 semitones respectively. Counting up from C yields:

C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

So the notes in the key of C major are C, D, E, F, G, A and B. We can use this method to find the notes in any major or minor key, and any scale or chord for which we know the formula and tonic / root note.

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Chord progression or riff? Not every chord progression can be considered a riff. A riff must have recognisable melodic or rhythmic content as well as harmony. It is also important to realise that not every riff should be considered a chord progression. We can discount purely melodic riffs immediately, and it is not usually very useful to consider the chromatic, palm-muted power chord or single note riffs of thrash metal as chord progressions either. However, if a riff is a harmonic figure that establishes a key it can be thought of as a chord progression. This links to an enormous field of study: functional harmony. Functional harmony assigns names and roles to the chords in a key. It describes how chords work together in progression. The simplest function to understand is that of the tonic (the I or i chord), which is the point of resolution for music in that key. One application of function harmony is the harmonisation of a melody. This useful skill will yield a chord progression that will sound correct under a given melody. There are many methods and articles dealing with the harmonisation of melodies on the internet. More complex applications of functional harmony include chord substitution, where one chord is substituted for another that works in the same way. This is frequently used in jazz to add variety.

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