Chords for How to Make a Guitar Riff Lesson

_ _ _ _ _ _ Hey guys, what's going on?
This is Robert.
I have a video lesson today for you on how
to write a riff.
So, this seems pretty simple, and to most people it's real easy to come
up with a riff.
You know, when you're jamming with someone, _ you guys might trade off just
jamming over _
[Gb] _ _ _ _ _ [D] _ _ [E] _
any kind of riff that you can come up with.
But when you're [Db] first learning
how to write riffs, it's funny because you actually have to [Gb] learn how to write.
So, [N] a
lot of it comes from knowing your scales.
Because if I ask you to write a lick in the
key of E, or A, or D, or B, _ a lot of people might not know what to do.
You know, some
[Em] of you might go to your [A] pentatonic shapes, like if I was like, I want to riff out a B,
you might go_
_ [E] _ _ _ [Bm] _
_ _ _ _ [B] _ _ _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[Am] You know, that could be a riff to jam over.
_ [Eb] Something like that.
I [N] just came up with that
one out of that pentatonic scale.
_ But, _ just a lesson on how to come up with a riff.
So,
I think this might be helpful to a lot of people.
So, what we're going to do is we're
going to do kind of what I just did.
We're going to take the pentatonic scale, and we're
going to do this first little shape.
If you don't know it, I will put the tabs up on the
screen, but this is an E pentatonic.
So, on the low E string, we're going to do open third
fret.
[G] _ _ _
On the A [Ab] string, D [B] and G, we're [Db] going to do open second fret.
[Bm] _ _ [Em] _ _ [A] _ _ _
On the B, it's open
third.
_ _ On the high E, [E] it's open [G] third.
_ So, the reason I picked [N] this one is because it
seems to be the easiest to kind of mess around with, and you get this nice convenience of
using open [Em] strings. _ _ _ _ _
[E] _ _ _ _ So, the trick to coming up with [N] a riff is kind of having a melody
or a rhythm to it, because you [Am] obviously don't [E] want a riff of _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ just_
_ _ _ _ _ I'm sure that
could be [N] some kind of riff.
To me, it's not that musical, though.
So, if I was to just
[Eb] come up with something on the spot, on the pentatonic [E] scale, I would _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ maybe_ _ _ _ _ _
_ You _ _ _ _ _ _ _ know? _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Eb]
And [E] I'm just running [C] that pentatonic scale.
Instead of _
_ [E] _ [Db] that, I gave it a lot more rhythm
and a lot more dynamics to your playing of it.
So, what you [N] want to do is start real
simple.
So, I always give my students to start off with literally just two notes, you know? _
And what you want to know is where your root notes are.
So, if you don't know what a root
note is, _ _ depending on what key you're in, it's pretty much all the E's.
So, if we're
in the key of E, it's all of your E notes.
If you're in the key of A, it's all of your
A notes.
And it just goes all over the place.
So, the first one, in this little bit of the
scale, is you have your open E [E] string, _ you have second fret on the D, and you have your
high E string, because your E strings are obviously E notes.
So, those are notes [Db] that
you kind of want to end on.
That's the point of the root note.
It kind of pulls everything
together at the end of a lick or just like a riff.
So, [Em] if I'm playing a guitar lick,
[A] _ _ it kind of [Eb] seems incomplete until I [E] hit that E note. _ _ _ _
Okay?
So, it's important to know where
your [N] root notes are when you're coming up with riffs.
Now, there are notes you can end
on that aren't root notes, but we're not going to mess with those right now.
So, start really
simple with a riff.
So, if I was to take apart what I just played, if I can even remember
[E] what I just did, I would start with this. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ That would be my riff.
_ [G] _ [E] _ So, I'm literally just hitting the low E string open twice, [Em] _ third
[G] fret on the low E, _ _ [Em] twice, pull off to an [E] open.
_ _ _ So, [C] pretty simple and it would be kind of
a boring riff.
So, once you get your [Bb] basic kind of [E] like groundwork done, that's when
you want to add in all the little bits, and that's where the scale really comes into play.
So, if I was to play that riff, I would_
_ _ _ _ [Em] _ _ _ _
[E] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Em] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [E] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[Gb] _ _ You know, and I would just run around playing in and out of [Eb] that scale.
So, that's kind
of how you come up with a riff.
Some little tips would be is take all the little things
that you've learned, [E] all the hammer-ons, [Gb] the muting, all that stuff, and it's really going
to give you this big, like diverse sound [E] versus everything just _ _ _ _ _ _ _ being_ _ _ _
I do a lot of palm muting.
_ Instead of picking [A] everything, I did [B] some hammer-ons or some
trills, [C] and there's _ [Gb] all these little bend riffs that I was doing.
_ And that's just from
years and years of _ [N] compiling all these little techniques, and it really, really adds to
creating good guitar riffs.
[E] Because playing solos is one [N] thing, and it's really cool and
fun, but in a band setting, 90% of the stuff you do is going to be rhythm work.
So, you
just want to have a good rhythm.
Some tips for coming up with rhythms.
Honestly, a lot
of them, _ I don't even know where they come from, _ to be totally honest.
I'd kind of just
start playing, and then like a riff would come out of nowhere.
[C] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Em] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [E] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Am] _ _ _ [E] You know, [Ab] for me, it works out good.
I just kind of start messing around on a [Ab] scale, and
a riff kind of comes.
[Ebm] Stuff I've done in the past is I would come up with little beats,
kind of like _ _ _ _ _ _ [B] the rhythm I just did.
[C] _ _
[A] _ _ _ So it would be another one.
I'd be like, _
_ _ _ [Db] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ so if I
was [Em] going to turn that into a [Am] riff_ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [E] _ _ [A] _ _ _
_ _ [Ab] _ _ _ [A] _ _ _
_ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Am] _ _ _ _ _ [A] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _ [N]
And there's a riff like that.
You can hum stuff.
I've recorded little _ tracks on my phone
just going like_
_ _ _ _ And that would maybe end up being a riff of some kind.
So those are just some pointers
on how to write some riffs.
Hopefully it helps.
It's stuff that I've used, and it seems to
help a lot of my students.
So, hope you guys enjoyed it.
_ Rock on.
Peace [Em] out. _ _
[G] _ _ _ [Fm] _ _ _ _ _
[F] _ _ _ [C] _ _ _ [D] _ _
_ [F] Peace out. _ _ _ _
_ _ [Em] _ _ _ _ _ _
[B] _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [N] _ _ _