- Grade 1 Riffs and More
I intend to post here some milestones of my combined consolidation of the Beginner Guitar Course [Classic] and exploration of the [new] Beginner Guitar Course Grades 1 & 2. Top of my list after viewing the new Beginner Guitar Course lessons was learning to play the riffs. They’re fun, I learnt something with each one, and once I was able to play decently the ones I’ve learnt they sounded like the song playing only a couple of bars. They’ve also given me opportunity to play with the electric guitar although with all of the Justin Guitar ones I started practicing with the acoustic and then moved to the electric once I was getting more fluent and feeling closer to be able to record them.
As probably others have, I passed with each one from struggling to play the right note sequence to search for the right note accent and suddenly, one day after many attempts, everything started to make sense and sound better. It took me year and a half to have all the Grade 1 riffs learnt and recorded. I think it was a well spent time while I was also at the same time spreading thin over other guitar projects waiting till they were ready when they were ready whenever that was.
Peter Gunn Theme
I was not familiar with this one. I had to listen first a recorded version of the theme with full orchestration to get a feeling of the melody. I don’t know if the original series was ever broadcasted in Colombia. in my humble opinion I think Henry Mancini and Ennio Morricone were the John Williams or the Hans Zimmer of the middle of the 20th century.
Seven Nation Army
I think I had listened the song before. I may look on moving the fretting hand without sliding on some notes, but for me is enough good at this point.
Sunshine Of Your Love
I think is not bad for someone who a couple of years back didn’t know that Cream was a band, that had barely heard about a guy named Eric Clapton, and that didn’t know him was member of that band. I think that I had listened the song before. I took Justin’s recommendation and explored the riff playing it on the fifth, fourth and third string in addition to playing it on the sixth fifth and fourth. I found difficult to find the right accent to play the last three notes of the riff.
Come As You Are
This one took me way longer to get it fluent with it than the other riffs. It may have been related with the reduction of my available practice time, but I think is more likely to be that it took me a while to understand how to connect the last notes of the riff with the first note after the pickup notes and then repeat the riff. The last notes of the riff are a variation of the pickup notes.
Smoke On The Water
I suppose this is one may be banned somewhere to protect the mental sanity of a guitar store owner and his or her employees, but it’s such a good one that is hard to resist to attempt to play it, and it think is a good one to check the tone of a guitar. No effects, just middle pickup and some twisting of the amp knobs. I had learnt it earlier than the other riffs but I hadn’t recorded it. This version of the riff is courtesy of another UK guitar channel. Just a couple of days ago i found that I was actually playing power chords on the fourth and third string when i was playing this one.
Eye Of The Tiger
For this one it was hard for me to find the sweet spot with the gain, where the first chords sounded percussive but the last one could be left ringing, and then move the fretting hand to repeat the riff without doing unwanted sounds. I tried several tones, but at the end I used a preset of the guitar modeller called Hard Rock. On my first attempts I was following more the tab on the video than watching the instructor and I was trying to do three finger chords in the four thickest strings until I realized that what he was showing were actually power chords and it was much easier to play it that way. This version of the riff is courtesy of a guitar channel in Portuguese. I also had learnt it earlier than the other riffs.
Note: In case someone speaks Spanish and find interesting, the best translation of riff that I’ve found is línea melódica
Nota: en caso de que alguien hable español y lo encuentre interesante, la mejor traducción de riff que he encontrado es línea melódica.
True it doesn’t play directly, but it played just fine after I clicked the “watch on YouTube” link.
