Cool Riffs For Electric Guitar

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).

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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.

Easy Electric Guitar Riffs Made For Beginners

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

Bleach Really Had Some Cool Riffs! I Would Not Have Picked Up Guitar Without Nirvana

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.

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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:

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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.

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‘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:

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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!

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‘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.

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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.

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‘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.

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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

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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.Playing riffs on the guitar can be overwhelming for beginners, no matter what age you start playing. The reason for this is that the phrase “playing a riff” sounds technical and because when you hear them, it seems to be playing so many notes in a short period. Especially those riffs that are played at a faster tempo.

However, playing riffs on an acoustic guitar can help you learn guitar techniques and pick up songs at a quicker pace. There are many easy guitar riffs that you can start with to know before working your way up to those more complex riffs or playing them on an electric guitar.

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To play riffs well, you must first have an understanding of what a guitar riff is. The basic definition of a guitar riff is that it is a repeated chord progression, sometimes like the chorus of a song.

Fundamentally, a riff is a specific pattern played in a solo fashion. For example, the short, repeated phrase can be made out of chords or done with individual notes and play on the lower part of the guitar like a rhythm, or you can play on the higher frets as a lead guitar part.

Depending on your playing skill, the guitar riffs can be played with clean tones or effects. If you are playing the main riff in a song, chances are you will play a solo riff.

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Once you feel that you have mastered a riff, you can play more advanced techniques with your guitar, such as learning a lengthier guitar solo.

You may have heard the phrase guitar “lick” instead of a guitar riff – these terms are both used loosely and interchangeably. The main difference between the two is how the melody is used.

If the tune goes along with the main idea or chorus of a song, it is known as the riff. However, if the solar part is more of a creative idea of the melody made into a solo, then it’s more likely known as a lick.

Riffs For Electric Guitar

To find the right chords to play your riff, you should determine the scales that the riff is based on. Most of the time, you will be playing off of already-known songs so that you can stick to their natural key.

But you can also change your chord choices based on other keys that the scale for the song is derived from. If you know the scale well, you can experiment with different chords to see what sounds best.

You’ll want to choose a chord that has multiple notes to play from. For example, the root note in a G Major Scale would be G, and you can start right from that same note for your riff.