Keep It Simple

One of the most important ingredients in a riff is to make it catchy - and the best way to accomplish that is to keep it simple.

Let's grab our 5th fret of the low E-string with our ring finger. Now let's hit that with all downstrokes going. Once I hit it on beat 3, I release fretting pressure so the note is short. Next we'll grab the 3rd fret of the low E-string with our index finger on beat 4. You can make that note short as well or you might like it better long.

This is already pretty catchy, and we could just repeat it. There's nothing wrong with that. It's a little repetitive, but that can be powerful if that's what you're going for. An easy way to make something sound catchy is two make it a two-part phrase, which means it's slightly different every other time it happens. Let's go with the simplest option, where we just leave out the G-note the second time we play it.

Now let's practice this together. I'll count us in and then we'll play the riff 4 times.

Anders Mouridsen
Instructor Anders Mouridsen
Styles:
Any Style
Difficulty:
Keep It Simple song notation

You need to be registered to ask our instructors a question.

Questions & Answers

There are no questions for this lesson yet.