Riffs
How to Create and Play Great Guitar Riffs
Published on 1. November 2010
192 pages
978-1-4768-5548-6 (ISBN)
Description
Rikky Rooksby's revised and updated bestseller explores more than 200 classic riffs, from Cream and Led Zeppelin, through Nirvana and Soundgarden, to Metallica, U2, and the White Stripes. The first half of the book analyzes classic rock riffs and reveals the stories behind their creation. Easy-to-read text describes and explains each riff, supported by illustrations and a CD of audio examples. The book's second section shows how to construct great riffs and why they work. Readers learn how to shape a melody, integrate a guitar riff with the rest of a song, enhance a riff with effects, and work with intervals and scales to build riffs.
More details
Edition
Revised edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Basingstoke
United States
Publishing group
Hal Leonard Corporation
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Edition type
Revised edition
ISBN-13
978-1-4768-5548-6 (9781476855486)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
11/2010
Backbeat Books
€24.00
Article not available at the moment
Person
Rikky Rooksby is a guitar teacher, songwriter/composer, and writer on popular music. He is the author of How to Write Songs on Guitar (2000, revised 2009, 2020), Inside Classic Rock Tracks (2001), How to Write Guitar Riffs (2002, revised 2010, 2021), How to Write Chord Sequences (2003, revised 2011), Chord Master (2004, revised 2016), and countless other books. He has written entries on rock musicians for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and published interviews, reviews, and transcriptions in many music magazines. He is a member of the Society of Authors, Sibelius One, and the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society. Visit his website at www.rikkyrooksby.com for more information.
Content
- Intro
- Section 1
- 1 The Semitone/half-Step Riff
- 2 The Tone/whole-Step Riff
- 3 The Octave Riff
- 4 The Perfect Fifth
- 5 The Perfect Fourth
- 6 The Tritone
- 7 Riffs In Thirds
- 8 Riffs In Sixths
- 9 Mixed Interval Riffs
- Section 2
- 10 The Pentatonic Minor Riff
- 11 The Blues Scale Riff
- 12 The Pentatonic Major Riff
- 13 The Major Scale Riff
- 14 The Mixolydian Riff
- 15 Aeolian Mode / Natural Minor Riffs
- 16 The Dorian Riff
- 17 The Phrygian Riff
- 18 The Lydian Riff
- 19 The Locrian Riff
- 20 Chromatic Scale Riffs
- Section 3
- 21 Pedal-Note Riffs
- 22 Drone-Note Riffs
- 23 Arpeggio Riffs
- 24 The Major Chord Riff
- 25 The Mixolydian Chord Riff
- 26 The Minor Chord Riff
- 27 Suspended Chord Riffs
- The Suspended Fourth
- The Suspended Second
- The Suspended Fourth And More
- 28 Triad-Based Riffs
- 29 Inverted Chord Riffs
- 30 Unusual Chord Riffs
- Section 4
- Repetition And Development
- Tempo
- Re-Harmonising
- Transposing A Riff
- Chord-Shapes
- Detuning For Riffs
- Altered Tunings In Rock
- Open Tunings
- Non-Open Tunings
- 'Dropped D' Riffs
- Form And Length Of Riffs
- How Riffs Are Used In Songs
- Rhythm And Time Signatures
- Simple Time
- Compound Time Signatures
- Other Rhythm Effects
- Syncopation
- Spaces And Drumboxes
- Arranging And Recording Guitar Riffs
- Multi-Tracking A Riff
- Different Instruments
- Harmonising A Riff
- Riffs And The Band
- Section 5
- A Masterclass With John Paul Jones
- On Influential Riffs
- On Zeppelin Riffs
- On Solo Riffs
- 'B Fingers'
- 'Grind'
- 'Freedom Song'
- 'Leafy Meadows'
- 'Shibuya Bop'
- 'The Thunderthief'
- On Playing Riffs In A Band
- Postscript 2010: Them Crooked Riffs
- Section 6
- Riffs Group One: Using Intervals
- Riffs Group Two: Using Scales
- Riffs Group Three: Using Chords
