My Favorite Riffs to Teach
When I first started teaching guitar I quickly learned that guitar students wanted to learn something fun. (Big surprise, right?!) Just as quickly, I surmised that playing riffs was like eating candy to a budding guitar player. So I set out to find the best riffs I could, ones that almost everyone recognized and that were relatively easy to play.
I sometimes use riffs to reward young guitar students for "eating their vegetables" - practicing the method books. (My favorite series for children is the "FJH Young Beginner Guitar Method". I usually use the Lesson, Exploring Chords, and Theory Activity books.) With adults, riffs are often the second thing that I teach (after simple two-note open position power chords - E5, A5, and D5).
With both children and adults, riffs are a great way to explain how tablature works.
By the way, I teach riffs to my piano students too, though the list is a little bit different. It includes licks like the theme from Pink Panther, the opening of Bach's Prelude and Fugue in D Minor, and the first motive from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. (Did you know that the terms riff and lick mean basically the same thing - a short but easily recognizable phrase of music?
The list below is my "go to" collection of riffs for guitar.
- Back in Black
- Beat It
- Brown Eyed Girl
- Cat Scratch Fever
- Crazy Train
- Day Tripper
- Enter Sandman
- Everyone Bites the Dust
- Free Fallin'
- Funk #41
- James Bond
- Johnny B Goode
- Kashmir
- Kryptonite
- Layla
- Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress
- Momma I'm Coming Home
- My Girl
- Nothing Else Matters
- Oh, Pretty Woman
- One
- Over the Hills and Far Away
- Paranoid
- Peter Gun
- Purple Haze
- Satisfaction
- Secret Agent Man
- Seven Nation Army
- Smells Like Teen Spirit
- Smoke on the Water
- Star Spangled Banner
- Sunshine of Your Love
- Sweet Chil' o' Mine
- Sweet Home Alabama
- Time of Your Life
- Walk This Way
- When I Come Around
- Whole Lotta Love
- Wipeout
- You Really Got Me
Happy Guitar and Piano Playing!
Jeff Anvinson, owner/ operator of JLA Music
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