 Hello everyone and welcome to Blackstar Potential. My name is Lee Fuge and I'm here with MGRMusic.com and in this video we're going to learn five essential riffs in open G tuning. So in the last video you guys would have learned how to put your guitar into open G tuning as we start to talk about alternate tunings. So if you haven't already checked out that video and you don't know about open G tuning please check that video out and then come back here and learn these five riffs. All the tones you're hearing in this video are coming from the Blackstar Studio 10 6L6 which is mic'd with a Luit audio condenser microphone and I'm using this really cool Blackstar carry-on guitar with a mini humbucker in the bridge. So the first riff we're going to learn is the Rolling Stones Riff Jumping Jack Flash. So I've got the guitar cappled at the fourth fret for this. So this is a great open G riff. It uses these three different chord shapes. So the first thing we're doing is we're playing a major chord which is all the strings open but I'm playing what looks like a power chord on the highest two strings. So I'm playing the open G, D and G, the third fret on the B and the fifth fret on the high D. You'll notice I'm doing this alternating rhythm there with the full chord and just the bass notes. Then I'm hitting this six plus four chord that we learned in the last lesson. I'm doing that from the open position so I'm just playing the second fret and the first fret. So when we play with the cappa we refer to the frets based on their relative position as if the cappa wasn't there. So even though this is technically the fifth fret I'm starting on because the cap was on the fourth we'd still refer to it as one, two, three and so on. And the next chord we're doing is something that looks a little bit like an F chord with the third fret on the high string except in open G tuning it has a slightly different sound. So this part makes up the intro riff so here's that whole section together. You may have noticed I was hitting some open strings there in some of the chord transitions just to aid with the speed of the change as well. This is something that Keith Richards did a lot when he was moving through different chords. The second half of that riff was the main riff from the song which is based on this real simple pattern here. So we're playing that first chord twice. These are nice big stabs on that chord followed by this little rhythm. So this is just three simple notes. It's the fifth fret on the G, what was previously our A, then I'm playing double stops on the D and G, open and three. Don't worry about this being super neat because it's that kind of sloppy rock and roll rhythm the stones are known for so I will play that through slowly once more and then again at full speed. The second riff we're going to learn also stays capoed at the fourth fret. This is the intro riff from the song Down Down from the group Status Quo. So this riff is made up of some droning strings most notably the G and also some fret notes on the D and B strings. So we're using a couple of different chord shapes here. We're using the third on the D and the third on the B with the open G. Then we're using the second and first like that sixth sus four. I'm also using the fifth and fifth. So we're starting off by playing the low G open followed by two hits on the chord that starts on the third fret. Then we play that open once more and go to the sixth sus four. Then we do the same rhythm but this time with the five and three. Then we do the first bar again so those three together. Then the riff ends with this little swing on the fifth fret chord. Down to the third and then that gets repeated a bunch of times until the next section of the track kicks in. So here's that intro riff slowly and then at full speed. So the next two riffs don't use a capo but they're going to use a slide. Now if you don't know anything about slide guitar we're going to be doing some lessons very soon on the Blackstar channel that cover how to start playing slide guitar. First one is a very very simple slide guitar riff. This is one of those riffs that everyone learns when they first learn slide guitar. This is the George Thurgood and the destroyer's track, bad to the bone. So this is a very very simple slide guitar riff. You can even play this without a slide if you've never tried playing slide before. All I'm doing is I'm playing major chords here on the G to the B strings so the middle four strings. You can hit the high D as well if you want doesn't really make too much of a difference like with all of these open G riffs because they're all rock based riffs you can be a little sloppy with them it doesn't have to be super precise. So what we're doing is we're hitting this open major chord twice. Now I'm taking my slide and I'm sliding it up to the fifth fret which is a C major chord. Then I'm hitting the open once more and then sliding up to the third fret which is a B flat major. And then a final open G major chord. And that's pretty much the riff it's just that sort of repeated phrase as you start to learn slide guitar you can start to learn to ad-lib some certain parts of that and add some licks but that is the bulk of the riff so I'll play that slowly and then at full speed. Fourth riff is another slide guitar riff. This is a track by the black crows called twice as hard. So again this is a nice simple slide guitar riff we're starting off once again with two hits of that open G major chord. Notice I'm accenting on that second one just digging in that little bit harder. Then I'm going to be sliding from the two to the four. Now I'm going to be basing this on the low G and the D. Now you don't have to be super precise again as I've said. Coming back to that open G major chord. Then we're just sliding up to that C major chord at the fifth fret hitting that chord adding lots of vibrato holding it for a bar and hitting it at the end of the second bar. And then the riff just repeats so here's the riff slowly and then at full speed. And the final open G riff we're going to learn today is back on the clean channel. This is the intro for the Alta Bird's track Watch Over You. This is actually played on an acoustic guitar but we'll do it today on a clean electric. So this is actually a fairly simple song to learn. It's mostly open strummed chords with the occasional little chord thrown in for good measure. So starting off with this little run of open G major chords. So there I'm doing an open chord on the one beat and I'm doing three sixteenth notes on the and two E. And then I'm hitting this chord here with the 10 on the D and the 10 on the B. Then I'm doing two more opens and moving that chord to the 12, two more opens moving that chord to the five. Once I'm on the five I'm moving this chord so I'm doing three hits here but I'm moving this highest note from the fifth to the third fret. So here's that first bar all together up to that chord change. Once I've let that ring for a dotted eighth note which is three sixteenth notes. Don't worry about counting that too much just listen to the sound of it. I'm doing four sixteenth note strums. Then a slight pause then three more. So again don't worry too much about counting this because there's a lot of dotted notes in there. If you've never counted dotted notes before they can be quite tricky. Just listen to that rhythm and try and lock into it. So you'll notice on the second repeat it does the same sort of thing but there's a slight twist on the ending. So we don't actually come down to that third fret at all we just stay on the fifth. So the first half is the same. But once we're on this chord we stay on this chord but we play the same rhythm. But then on the final three beats we do a slide to the seven. So this means you're pretty much playing the same rhythm twice but there's that little slide ending on the second time and we don't go down to that third fret. So here's this one slowly and then at full speed. So there you go guys there are five riffs in open G tuning for you to get started with. Now that you've learnt the basics of the tuning and learnt a couple of riffs you can start to develop your open tuning skills. Thank you guys so much for watching. I hope you've enjoyed this video. Let us know down below in the comments what you thought of these riffs. If there are any open G riffs you think we missed put them below as well. And also if there are any other topics you'd like to see us talk about in these videos throw those down below in the comments as well. Don't forget to check out Black Star Amplification on YouTube for more videos just like this. And if you're looking for a guitar teacher please check out mgrmusic.com. There's a network of great teachers all around the UK waiting to help you guys out. Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you soon.