This Smashing Pumpkins riff is quick, easy and beautiful. I also have spotted many errors in guitars I would have bought with this song. That’s always appreciated.
Throughout the 90s, Live has stayed fairly low and yet always has been a presence. With mild success in the album Mental Jewelry, they hit the mainstream with Throwing Copper and the hit song Lightning Crashes.
Lastly, the Chili Peppers. At the peak of their long (and at this moment, on going) career in the music industry, the Red Hot Chili Peppers brought us Under the Bridge. This song is right on the coattails of Stairway to Heaven to become the intro most often played by novices in music stores. And what a great intro it is!
Put a capo on the second fret to play it, and once you have enough practice you can try it without the capo. Enjoy!
Originally known for hard and fast metal with plenty of social outrage, Incubus started to, as David Hodge puts it, “genre dance” (Do You Genre Dance?) While the band switched from their metal style on S.C.I.E.N.C.E. to their much softer and slightly hip hop style on Make Yourself they threw in this little number. It’s chock full of fun bends. You’ll need to listen closely to the original to get it right.
What guitarist can get away without knowing a little bit of Dave Matthews? My roommate in college learned to play Crash flawlessly in about 2 hours… without ever picking up a guitar before in his life. It took me a little bit longer. (Another fun thing about this song: If you only play the bass notes it’s the same melody as a clock chimes before each hour.)
Punk rock’s own illegitimate children, Blink 182, have been shunned by their punk fathers, though their style obviously came from that genre. Blink 182 made punk popular (much to the dismay of punk) without ever playing all six strings at the same time. Their best album, in my opinion, is Dude Ranch. It is filled with quirky lines about girls, getting drunk, and masturbating. Dammit is from that album.
The rapper Everlast stopped jumping around and did some solo work. Formerly in the House of Pain, he picked up a guitar. He played rhythm under rock legend Santana for one excellent song, but not before releasing his own album.
Nirvana is the band for all beginning guitarists. Kurt Cobain put high doses of emotion into his playing, and kept everything simple and straightforward. The first riff I ever learned to play was the intro bass riff in Come As You Are. Only slightly more difficult is the band’s first smash hit.
Weezer found themselves the spotlight early in 90s with their first self-titled album, now known as the Blue Album. Their songs were sincere and humorous glimpses into their average lives. Their second album, Pinkerton, didn’t do as well on the charts, but gave Weezer an almost cult following. This is probably Weezer’s first hit.
It was 1987 when Guns n Roses came out with Appetite for Destruction, an album which popularized hard rock riffs again. The band was a musical sign of the times, symbolizing a lot of what was to follow. Sweet Child ‘O Mine is another rather simple riff. To play like the original you will need to tune all your strings down a half step.
I can not talk about 80s guitar without mentioning Van Halen. While any one of their David Lee Roth era songs could contain a memorable riff (DLR another 80s icon), let’s look at something from his last album with the band 1984. As one reviewer wrote, this is where the band really reached their highest potential. Though Van Halen riffs are usually more than a handful for the beginner, I thought I’d include at least one.
Any look at the music of the eighties is probably going to dwell on bands that didn’t survive. It was a decade where pop music and fashion thrived. Nowhere is the excess of this culture captured better than the album Kick by INXS. The catchy pop songs they produced included some simple riffs such as New Sensation and Devil Inside.
Also notable is the four note riff that follows the chorus in Never Tear Us Apart. It is so simple, yet anyone who has heard the album, or better yet, INXS’ live album from Wembley Stadium knows the power and resonance these simple notes hold.
The 80s could very well be the decade of the sell-out. Groups like Genesis and Yes, once known for writing long progressive rock epics, began turning out radio friendly 3 or 4 minute songs. In 1983 Yes released the album 90125 and earned a new fan base thanks to the riff driven hit Owner of A Lonely Heart.
Ever seen the Sean Penn movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High? It was before he married Madonna. If you don’t know what I’m talking about read on. In this movie they have a few jokes about Pat Benatar look alikes. If you don’t know what Pat Benatar looks like forget about it. But, she is famous for a song I can only describe as ultimate eighties. In 1980 she became an overnight star thanks to her album Crimes of Passion and the song Hit Me With Your Best Shot, a basic song with a riff comprised entirely of power chords.
While Sting was still a member of The Police he consistently turned out good hit songs. Perhaps his biggest hit of the 80s was Every Breath You Take. This song was given a new life a few years ago thanks to a cover by Puff Daddy. It is a rather difficult song to master for physical reasons alone. You are required to stretch your left hand across 5 frets. To sound like the recording you should also subtly apply some palm muting.
The great thing about rock guitar riffs is that once you learn them you can amaze your friends. Everyone can recognize and appreciate a good riff if you play it right. Also, playing riffs takes a detour around learning to play an entire song, which can be a daunting and sometimes impossible task for a beginner who is probably playing by him or herself. Fortunately, some of the most recognizable guitar riffs of all time are also the easiest ones to play. Here are some catchy rock riffs straight from “Guitar Rock.” Every rock guitarist should have these songs in their repertoire.
In this lesson I am going to explain a guitar technique called "sweep picking" or also known as "economy picking". Sweep picking allows you to play a flurry of notes at a speed that would be very difficult to match using just alternate picking.
The basic idea of sweep picking is that you are going to play 2 or more notes on adjacent strings using the same picking direction for all of the notes.
A lot of times when the technique of sweep picking is talked about, it is in the context of shedding metal guitar. Players like John Petrucci from Dream Theater, or Yngwie Malmsteen playing lightning speed sweep arpeggios across all 6 strings. But that is only part of what can be done with sweep picking. The technique can be used in a much more subtle manner for some great effects.
The Sweep
Here is one of the most basic sweep picking ideas. You are going to play and arpeggio (the notes of a chord played one at a time) on 3 adjacent strings. This example is a Dm arpeggio on the top 3 string. When sweep picking, you do not want to lift up your pick for each individual note. You want to just let your pick glide (sweep) across the surface of the strings. It is similar to the motion for strumming, but you will articulate each note rather that just hearing all of the notes together as one chord. You also will not want to hold all of your fingers down as if you where playing a chord.
= pick down
= pick up
Here you are just reversing the direction and sweep picking up on all of these notes.
Here you are sweeping picking down, then up. The trick is to keep a steady rhythm.
Sweep picking with hammer-ons and pull-offs
In this next example, you are going to add a hammer-on into the arpeggio on the 1st string.
In this example you are going to add a pull off the the basic sweep picking arpeggio on the 1st string.
