Making a riff?

[heknowsnothing]

How do i make a decent rock or metal riff? Could somebody start me off? im really confused about this song making. :confused: :confused:

[Polera]

An easy way would be to look to scales. For rock, the pentatonic scale is quite popular, do a search for it, commit it to memory then u can randomly hop around or do some systematic approach like 2 notes forward, 1 back etc. There is different keys for pentatonic so find one that suits you.

[CW14]

Try making a riff/melody up in your head, then working it out on the guitar.

[sailorjim]

Try making a riff/melody up in your head, then working it out on the guitar.


This is a great answer. So many people try to put the riff on the guitar first before thinking in their head on what it sounds like. Once you have the it worked in you head it is easy to put on the guitar... if you think about it, threre are only a 6 notes in the blues scale.

[CW14]

Also, just learn lots and lots of riffs from your favourites bands. You'll start to pick up how they do it ;)

[Superhuman]

Try making a riff/melody up in your head, then working it out on the guitar.

Yep, that's the way to do it all right, works for riffs and solos. That and just experimenting with shapes on the fretboard.

[Hamberg]

Arrange your songs like this:

intro
verse
prechorus
verse
prechorus
chorus
bridge
1/2 verse
prechorus
chorus x2
outro

and the riff will begin to make sense...

[heknowsnothing]

I can't transcribe songs onto guitar. It never sounds right. Ive only just learnt to tune without the use of an electric tuner. Im gonna look at some ear training lessons first.