Guitar riffs are one of the most fun things about playing guitar. Here’s 30 of our favourites from the likes of Eric Clapton, Guns and Roses and Radiohead. Let’s do it!
Guitar riffs are melodic phrases that are played on guitar and are catchy and memorable. They are musical ‘hooks’ and the best ones are instantly recognisable (sometimes from the very first note).
Often, guitar riffs can be technically demanding, so learning them will instantly improve your dexterity and technique as a guitarist. Not only do they improve your technique, but learning guitar riffs also helps with your timing.
Country Music's Top 10 Guitar Riffs
Throughout history, guitar riffs have played a major role in forming guitar culture in popular music, so it’s a right of passage for you as a guitarist.
One of the best things about learning guitar riffs is that they are awesome to play. What’s better than learning your favourite guitar riffs on your guitar? Literally nothing!
If you want to learn guitar riffs, you MUST be able to read guitar tabs. Check out our guide to learn fast: How To Read Guitar Tabs Guitar Riffs #1 – ‘Seven Nation Army’ by The White Stripes
Riffs For Electric Guitar
This is one of the best guitar riffs of all time. It’s easy to play, sounds great and can be played on one string. Here’s the tab:
This song needs a decent amount of distortion with cranked mids and bass. Once you get that tone singing you’ll want to play this riff all night long because it loops really well.
If you’re into pedals and really want to capture a major element of the tone on this song on your guitar, consider picking up an EHX Big Muff. This is similar to the Big Muff Pi that White used on this song, and gives us that gnarly fuzz sound that we hear so much of in his music.
Best Electric Guitars For Intermediate Players
This riff can be played in a number of different ways. If you’re a beginner you may be tempted to play this with one finger.
This is known as the ‘1-finger per fret method’ and you can learn more about this technique in our guide: Guitar Techniques: 18 Guitar Tricks Which Make You Sound Amazing
Now, if you’re a beginner guitarist this is one of the first guitar riffs that you will learn. Here are a few reasons why it’s perfect for beginners to learn:
Greatest Guitar Riffs Of All Time
One of the hardest parts about playing this guitar riff is barring over two of the strings at the same time. This can be tricky for most beginners. If you struggle with this you can play the main riff on just one string without barring at all.
The intro riff has such an iconic sound and to this day is still considered one of the most iconic ways to use a fuzz pedal.
Pro Tip: Electro-Harmonix have created a pedal that is essentially a clone of the Maestro FZ-1 fuzz pedal used on this song, and it’s called (you guessed it) the Satisfaction Plus Fuzz. We think this pedal is awesome and is as close as anyone is going to get to nailing the original tone from this song.
Easiest Guitar Tabs: 10 Iconic Riffs You Should Learn
‘Sunshine of Your Love’ is arguably one of the greatest guitar riffs of the classic rock. Clapton’s roaring ‘woman tone’ along with a catchy syncopated riff makes this one of the best hooks of all time.
The riff is based around power chords. Power chords are commonly used in rock music to give the music more depth and weight.
It has a strong blues influence and was included in the Beatles set until their retirement in 1966. Here are a few reasons why it’s one of the greatest guitar riffs ever:
Must Know Easy Guitar Riffs For Beginners (with Tab)
If you find this riff tricky, tackle it 2-3 notes at a time. The hardest part about this riff is skipping strings, so make sure that you take your time with that and practice it s-l-o-w-l-y to embed the correct muscle memory.
‘Redemption Song’ is one of the coolest Bob Marley tracks. It kicks off the song with a pretty easy guitar riff. Here’s the tab:
When playing this riff, take your time. There are lots of repeating sections here so it can be easy to get confused, but take it a bar at a time and you’ll be chillin’ with Bob in no time!
Best Beginner Riffs: Cool Guitar Songs To Get You Started
‘Brown Eyed Girl’ is Van Morrison’s most famous song and with such an brilliant guitar riff at it’s heart, it’s easy to see why.
This riff is a little tricky, the hardest part is using two fingers at the same time. To get used to playing this, practice playing each fretted note individually then combine each section one by one until you can play the whole riff.
Before this riff kicks in, Tony Iommi famously bends behind the note to allow his guitar to roar before the main guitar riffs kick in.
How To Write Better Guitar Riffs
Crank the gain on your amp for this one, there’s a reason Black Sabbath are one of the heaviest bands of all time.
The lovely people at Catalinbread have created the Sabbra Cadabra pedal – an accurate tribute to the signature sound of Tony Iommi. We’re big fans of how close this pedal gets to that doomy tone that only Sabbath could create.
‘Chasing Cars’ is one of the most played songs on British radio over the past 10 years. It gained most of its popularity through the TV show ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ where it was played in the season finale of season 2.
Play Guitar With... The Greatest Guitar Riffs Of All Time Tab Bk/2cd By Various (2006 02 24): Amazon.com: Books
This riff is a bit of a finger twister so you’ll need to be patient with yourself stretching between the frets. The most important part of this riff is to let each note ring out as clearly as possible.
‘Heart of Gold’ was a release from Neil Young’s album ‘Harvest’ and is the only single of Young’s to reach number 1 in his homeland, Canada.
This guitar riff uses a lot of palm muting. You can learn more about this cool technique here: Palm Muting: The Essential Guide
Learn To Play 7 Of The Greatest Guitar Riffs Of The 21st Century
It comes off of the ‘Back In Black’ studio album which is the first album to feature vocalist Brian Johnson. It combines chords, pull-offs and single-note lines.
Take care when learning this song as it can be challenging to move between the chords and the lead parts. If you’re struggling, try to learn it in distinct phases and gradually blend them together.It might sound strange, but some of the world’s most popular guitar songs are not that difficult to play. Catchy guitar hooks have been showing up in popular music for nearly a hundred years, and most of these memorable songs feature a simple melody played over a driving beat. Today, we’re going to show you how to play six easy guitar riffs and we’re going to tell you the story behind each song.
Nirvana’s “Come As You Are” is a simple, poignant song that highlights singer Kurt Cobain’s sensitive side to his approach to songwriting. Released as the second single from the band’s second studio album,
Of The Greatest Guitar Riffs Of All Time
, this song further propelled the band into the mainstream after it began receiving sudden and unexpected acclaim in the early 90’s. First showing up on a tape of demos in 1991, the recorded version of this song actually features Cobain singing phrases like “and I don’t have a gun, ” and “memoria” on a vocal take out of time. After hearing the recorded track, Cobain decided he liked the way the vocal mistakes sounded, so he kept them in. Cobain wanted his guitar part to sound “watery, ” so he used a chorus guitar effect to build a washed out tone. Cobain describes the song as being about the contradictory nature of the human condition.
The song begins with a simple riff played by Cobain on the 6th string. The melody features a simple rhythm, and is ideal for beginning guitar players. Tune the 6th string down to D for this song.
The prominent guitar riff featured in Deep Purple’s “Smoke On The Water” is easily one of most recognizable melodies in popular music. Ranked number 434 in
Top 30 Best Electric Guitar Rock Songs Of The 70's
List of the greatest 500 songs of all time, the song is known mainly for its central theme which is a four-note blues scale melody in the key of G minor, harmonized in parallel fourths. The guitar part is doubled by an organ treated with a distortion effect. The lyrics of the song tell the true story of when Deep Purple was at a casino in Switzerland to record an album in the winter of 1971. While watching another band, Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention, the venue in the casino somehow caught fire when a fan fired a flare gun at the ceiling. Thankfully, there were no injuries, but the fire destroyed the entire casino complex as well as the Mothers of Invention’s equipment. Bet you didn’t know one of music’s easy guitar riffs had a background story like that.
This guitar riff is built off of simple power chords and is built off of a simple, driving rhythm. With a little practice, this one should be quite easy to learn.
The lead guitar part in “Day Tripper” is simple, straightforward, and will likely get stuck
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