The Sunday Riff – Taking It All

A fast heavy metal riff in harmonic minor

April 10th, 2011

Welcome to the second Sunday Riff post!!

Today’s riff is a fat metal riff that uses harmonic minor and palm muting to create a dense rhythmic pattern.

I decided to present you with the demo song first because

• It gives you an idea of how the riff sounds in context
• It is more fun to listen to than the dry riff

Have a listen!

[audio:examples/SundayRiff/taking_it_all_demo_09_04_2011.mp3|titles=Taking It All - Demo]

Now for the actual riff. Here are the notes including the tabulature:

The riff is based on the hard rhythmic beat of the palm muted bass notes contrasted with the brighter semitone slides.
The first 2 bars are in E harmonic minor. In the second half of the riff, the entire pattern is shifted up by to A harmonic minor, which introduces additional tension. This tension is released with a 2/4 bar at the end leading back to the beginning of the riff.

It can be a little tricky to play the semitone slides perfectly on time; I think even I’m not doing such a good job of it
Here is the plain guitar riff:

[audio:examples/SundayRiff/taking_it_all_riff_09_04_2011.mp3|titles=Taking It All - Riff]

I am currently planning out a bigger post on the importance on improvisation, but it might take me a little given the large amount of demo/backing tracks I want to include.

For now, I hope you enjoyed today’s riff!

The Sunday Riff – A Rugged Shade of Grey

A dark and rugged guitar riff in harmonic minor

April 3rd, 2011

I haven’t been posting nearly as often as I would like. Part of that is due to having been a bit busy, part is simply due to laziness.
However, I do believe that many of my posts also get held up by the fact that they are so monolithic it’s hard for me to find a good place to start. Even once I’ve started writing, i tend to endlessly change things around or reword sections and I feel like I may never get done.

So I’ve decided to try to do a small weekly post called ‘The Sunday Riff’.

In The Sunday Riff, I will present a small musical element I’ve come up with during the week including the recording, the notes and the tab. It might not always be an actual guitar riff; it may be a classical arpeggio, a piano melody or a drum pattern – just a small and simple piece of my music.
If there is a specific idea behind the piece, I might explain a little bit about it, but the basic idea is just to give you something to listen to and try out for yourself

I will still try to get bigger, more informative posts up, but I won’t to feel so pressed to get them up each week that I just end up getting writer’s block.

Today’s riff is an actual, simple and gritty, guitar ‘riff’.
It uses muted strings and semitone steps within the harmonic minor scale to create a dark and rugged feel.
Have a listen to the plain riff:

[audio:examples/SundayRiff/rugged_shade_of_grey_riff_03_04_2011.mp3|titles=Rugged Shade of Grey - Riff]

Here are the notes and the tab for the riff:

The riff does not sound overly exciting by itself, but when combined with a solid drum line and a bass guitar, I think it creates a nice and dark atmosphere.

[audio:examples/SundayRiff/rugged_shade_of_grey_demo_03_04_2011.mp3|titles=Rugged Shade of Grey - Concept]

I hope you enjoyed this post
There will be more to come!

Guitar Composition – Open Chords

The elegance and magic of composing with open guitar chords

January 8th, 2011

A lot of people seem to have trouble coming up with their own melodies and chord progressions so today I want to show you one of my favourite – and probably most simple – methods

All you need is a guitar. You don’t need to be a particularly strong player, but you should be comfortable shifting your hand up and down the neck. We will be using open chords and fixed finger positions to create some interesting chord progressions.

Place your hand somewhere at or above the 5th fret of the guitar and choose one or two notes to hold down with your fingers. I usually make sure that the notes I press are within the same scale as the open strings I intend to use, but sometimes you can get nice effects if they are not.
If you are not sure, simply stick to any notes from the Em scale (E, F#, G, A, B, C, D) and you’ll be fine

Now strum or pick the notes you chose together with the open strings in an arbitrary rhythm. You might want to only strum some of the strings as too many different notes in one chord will make it sound muddy. In Example 1 below I am not playing the A string because it would add too much dissonance to the chords.

Finding a nice sound is all about experimentation. Never be afraid to just let your fingers fall wherever they want and just try it out! With time you will get better and better at having your fingers naturally find notes and chords that sound pleasant

From this initial chord, it is really simple to find follow up chords: simply shift your entire hand up or down the neck, keeping the relative finger positions and the open strings. Sometimes you might have to move a finger up or down by a fret when you shift your hand just to keep the notes within the scale and sometimes you might have to change your entire grip to something entirely different, but most of the time simply shifting your hand can give you some nice results.

Example 1
E|---0---0---0---0---0---0---
B|---0---0---0---0---0---0---
G|---8---4---6---8---11--9---
D|---9---5---7---9---12--10--
A|---------------------------
E|---------------------------

[audio:examples/30_12_2010_open_chords/open_chords_example_3.mp3|titles=Shift with fixed finger positions]

Notice that all I am doing in Example 1 is shifting my hand up and down the neck. My grip remains the same throughout. A modification of this method is to shift only a single note of the chord instead of the entire hand. This is most often done with the bass note of the chord as show in Example 2:

Example 2
E|---------------
B|---0---0---0---
G|---0---0---0---
D|---9---9---9---
A|---10--9---7---
E|---------------

[audio:examples/30_12_2010_open_chords/open_chords_example_2.mp3|titles=Single shifting note]

This is a really simple approach, but can give you some nicely flowing chord progressions.
For the last example, let’s look at something a bit more complicated! In Example 3, I am not only shifting my hand, but I am also changing my grip each time to add more intricate elements to the chords. We could add even more detail to this pattern with hammer-ons and pull-offs.

Example 3
E|---0---0---3---2---
B|-------------------
G|-------------------
D|---5---4---2---4---
A|---7---5---3---5---
E|-------------------

[audio:examples/30_12_2010_open_chords/open_chords_example_1.mp3|titles=Shift with changing finger positions]

I usually start with my hand at a fairly high position on the neck because I feel that it makes the notes under my fingers stand out in a nice contrast to the lower notes of the open strings. Furthermore, very simple picking patterns can sound quite elaborate because notes on consecutive strings are not necessarily in order of pitch.

And that is all ther is to this technique I like it for its simplicity and because it takes you away from playing the ‘standard’ chords you are usually taught when you start learning how to play.

To show you the power of this technique, I have created a little song example!

For the chords, I started off with a simple power chord on the 5th fret of the D string, leaving the 3rd and 4th string open, giving me a nice G9/D chord – that’s a G major chord with a 9th (A) and the D as the lowest note.
I then shift my hand up to the 7th, then the 10th and down to the 3rd fret to create my simple verse section:

I wasn’t too creative with the bridge. I wanted a similar feel, but with a little bit more power so all I did was change the picking pattern and move my hand down to the 3rd fret and across to the 6th string. I haven’t created a chorus yet, so the bridge just falls back to a small interlude section and then the song frament ends.

Here is the mixed song fragment! I hope you enjoy it

[audio:examples/30_12_2010_open_chords/31_12_2010_tranquility.mp3|titles=Tranquility]