Things I found useful with this riff:
-
Get your picking hand moving first - without touching the strings. (“Air picking”?) All down picks, 8th notes.
-
While keeping your hand moving, count out loud “1 + 2 + 3” Make sure you are doing an air pick in time with your counting (these are shown as red, lower case "d"s in the diagram below.
-
On the “and of three” start picking the strings, fretting as shown in the tab. I found it helpful to speak the “1 + 2 + 3” count-in in a monotone, and sing “+ 4 + 1” when I started playing. The picked notes are shown as upper case "D"s in the diagram.
-
Note that there are two “air picks” ("d"s) shown in the repeated part of the riff. I found it critical to do these as shown. Otherwise, I would lose the feel of the rhythm, and it didn’t sound (or feel!) good.
I used the rudimentary photo editor on my iPad to mark up the tab.
This is a hell of a lot of detail for 3 bars of music, but I’ve often found it’s necessary when struggling with a passage…especially when learning online.
Hope this helps. If so, please let me know with at least a like, so I know I’m not speaking into the void. If not…feel free to ask questions.
-Tom