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Chapter 7
Musical Riffs:
Bedrock of the Blues
In This Chapter
Mastering the basics: Single-note riffs
Exploring double-stop riffs
Shooting for high-note riffs
Taking your skills to the next level: Mastering rhythm figures
It can be tough to find your own blues voice because you can’t spontaneously
improvise the blues any more than you can improvise baroque
or bebop; you have to learn the vocabulary. And the vocabulary for blues
includes licks and riffs.
Although related to chords, riffs aren’t tethered to chords the way the rhythmbased
approach is (check out Chapter 6 for more about chords). It’s always
good to know where your riffs spring from — especially if they’re derived out
of a chord form! But you don’t need to grab a chord first to play a riff. In this
chapter, you play riffs with a liberated left hand!
When you learn chords, strumming, double-stops, and single-note riffs, you
have most of the ingredients necessary to start really developing as a player.
In the blues, it’s always a delicate balance between cloning the greats and
doing your own thing.
Basic Single-Note Riffs
A riff is a self-contained musical phrase, and it can be used to form the basis
for a song. Riffs are the bridge from chords to lead guitar. They’re usually
based on single notes, but they can involve double-stops (two notes played
simultaneously) and bits of full-chord playing.
TEAM LinG