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How To Find Easy Guitar Riffs That Sound Cool

By Mike Hayes | June 14, 2010

It’s funny when you buy a guitar all your friends automatically
expect you to be able to play just about any song on the guitar
straight away, it’s as it there is a hidden magic button that you
just press and the guitar will play the tune.

Of course you could plug yourself into a computer and become a
guitar hero (pun intended) but that wouldn’t be half as much fun
as actually playing a real guitar would it? … of course not!

The problem is how you quickly learn easy guitar songs that will
give your friends the impression you are a legend and keep them
off your back while you go about the long and demanding task of
learning to play a musical instrument.

This scenario might sound funny however it’s all too real for
those of us who have decided to learn the guitar; I clearly
remember my cousin coming to visit us, he was four years older
than me and had been playing for about six months; I, on the
other hand had been learning the guitar, studying hard and taking
private lessons for two years at that stage.

My cousin was keen to hear me play, I was quite shy about playing
for anyone but somehow my mum convinced me to play for our
visitors, I proceeded to slowly and painfully mangle an
unrecognizable rendition of Yankee Doodle that even the composer
would not have recognized.

Unperturbed, I moved on to my next piece an even worse rendition
of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star … that was it; my audience
could not contain themselves any longer, my cousin had tears
streaming down his cheeks and was obviously in pain from trying
to withhold the laughter …. I might have noticed this earlier
if I had looked up in between musical items!

That was pretty much the end of the concert much to everyone’s
relief especially mine! I vowed to never play for anyone again;
something I obviously overcome latter in life; but this incident
almost destroyed me, what made matters worse is that I
accidentally overheard my cousin playing his guitar when we
visited our relations a few months latter, his playing totally
floored me he was playing AC/DC, Rolling Stones and Creedence
Songs effortlessly.

I could not for the life of me understand how he could do it, to
make matters even worst (as if they could possibly get any
worse!) I knew he wasn’t taking any guitar lessons, he had
learned to play these songs ‘by ear!’

Long story short, over time I discovered the truth …

My cousin was not particularly musically talented or gifted he
had simply learned how to play some easy (but great sounding)
guitar riffs, he couldn’t play the whole songs just the most
recognizable part of the song; I didn’t know this, our family
didn’t know this and I suspect he had just about everyone fooled
into thinking he was a ‘gifted’ player, he certainly had me
fooled.

So here’s is my short list of easy guitar riffs so you can
impress everyone while you take your time learning all the other
stuff.

Riff 1. Smoke On The Water – Deep Purple

Riff 2. Sweet Child Of Mine – Guns N’ Roses

Riff 3. Sunshine Of Your Love – Eric Clapton

Riff 4. James Bond Theme

Riff 5. Black Night – Black Sabbath

Riff 6. Enter Sandman – Metallica

Riff 7. Peter Gunn Theme

A quick search on the internet on the most popular TAB sites and
you will find all of these songs … the problem is finding a
accurate version documented in the same key as the recorded
version; this is important because you don’t want to spend any
time learning a song in the wrong key and training your fingers
to play mistakes that will be very difficult to re-learn latter
in your guitar playing career.

To help you identify the correct versions here is the first few
notes of each riff.

Riff 1. Smoke On The Water – Deep Purple

———–
———–
–0–3–5–
–0–3–5–
———–
———–

Riff 2. Sweet Child Of Mine – Guns N’ Roses

—————
—-14———
——-13–11–
11————-
—————
—————

Riff 3. Sunshine Of Your Love – Eric Clapton

———–
———–
———–
-7–7–5—
-5–5–3—
———–

Riff 4. James Bond Theme

————-
————-
————-
————-
—-2—–3–
-0—–0—–

Riff 5. Black Night – Black Sabbath

—————–
—————–
—————–
—–5———–
-7——-7—5—
—————–

Riff 6. Enter Sandman – Metallica

———–
———–
———–
——5—-
—7——-
-0——6–

Riff 7. Peter Gunn Theme

—————
—————
—————
—————
—————
-0–0–2–0—-

Almost every guitarist plays songs like ‘Some On The Water’ the
only problem is 95% of them play it wrong … if you do a search
and the TAB does not begin with these notes, move on it’s far too
difficult a task to re-learn things on the guitar.

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