The Sunday Riff - Taking It All

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!

🔊 Listen (audio)

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 :D Here is the plain guitar riff:

🔊 Listen (audio)

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!