 Hello everybody and welcome to Blackstar Potential. My name is Lee Fuge and I'm here with mgrmusic.com and today we're going to learn how to play five classic rock riffs and dial in some suitable tones using the Blackstar Silverline standard. All the riffs that you're going to learn in this lesson use just three chords G major, D major and C major. First of all let's take a quick look at the chords. The G major is going to be played like this. We're also doing a variation on this in one of the songs where we play it without the note on the A string played. So it's played with the A string muted so you take your first finger off like so. The D chord is going to be played like this and the C chord is going to be played like this. We're going to combine these three chords with a bunch of techniques from string picking to hammer-ons pull-offs and string bends to create these five cool riffs. All of the tones that you hear in this video are inspired by the original artist's recordings. They're all dialed in using the Blackstar Silverline standard. If you like the tones you can go over to the Blackstar Insider community online and download the tones from blackstarinsider.co.uk. There'll also be a link to the tones in the description below. The first riff we're going to learn is by The Clash and it's a track called Should I Stay or Should I Go. Here's the riff at full speed. So this riff uses just two of the chords the D and the G. This is straight eighth notes but we're not playing on the first beat we're starting on the end so you do two hits of the D chord and two. On the end of two we're playing the G, B and E strings as an open as we transition into the G which comes in on the three. The G is played on the three and four and then we hit those three open strings again on the end of four and then we hit another D on the one of the next bar. The second third and fourth beats of the second bar are played as muted string riffs. So with your fretting hand you want to mute the strings and with your picking hand the third bar is exactly the same as the first bar so we revisit the initial riff that starts on the end of the first beat and then on the third beat of the final bar we're doing a quick little hammer on from the fifth to the eighth fret of the high E string. So here's that riff nice and slow and once again at full speed. To get the tone for this I'm using a single coil loaded sugar gold masquerader in the bridge position to get a telecaster style bite. Got the crunch voice selected on the amp with the EL34 response and a very low gain setting. Second riff we're going to learn is the Leonard Skinner song Sweet Home Alabama. So here's the riff at full speed and then we'll break it down a bit. For the song we're using the D, C and G chords but we're playing a slight variation on the C. We're playing it as what's called the Cadd 9 which is like this. It's like a G chord but it's rooted on the A string. We're playing it as the third fret on the A, the open D and G and a third fret on the B and E strings. This riff starts with a D chord with a little arpeggiated pattern that starts from a double open D string like so. Then we move into our Cadd 9 pattern and I'm doing the A string three times but I'm muting the third time and then I'm doing the same pecking pattern backwards from the B, G and D strings. Then from the G chord I'm repeating that same pattern where I'm picking the E string which is the third fret of the E string three times but I'm muting the middle one and then I'm playing the open G. So here's that all together nice and slow. First bar ends with a little hammer-on pull-off lick on the A, D and G strings. It starts with the open G followed by a hammer-on from the open A to the second fret. Then we've got a hammer-on pull-off from the open to the two and back again on the D string which lands then on the second fret of the A and a pull-off from the second to the open on the G. So here's that lick all together. The third bar is just a repeat of the picking pattern in the first bar with a D, Cadd 9 and G chords and then the final bar is an ascending lick on the G string which starts with an open G followed by a pull-off from the second fret to the open string again, another open string then a pull-off from the fourth fret to the open string, the open D string and then a bend on the fifth fret of the G up a full tone. So here's the riff all together nice and slow and here's that riff at full speed once again. The original version of the song was recorded on a strat style guitar in the second position so you want two single coils the bridge and the middle position selected at the same time. I'm using the clean bright voice on the amplifier with the gain pushed up quite high and an EL34 response. Third riff we're going to learn is the AC-DC track You Shook Me All Night Long. Here's the riff in full. This riff uses the G, D and C chords with some quick changes so it starts off with a full bar of the G so it's just G on the first beat and that's held for a full four beats. The second bar is some quick changes from the C to the G. Think of this as eighth notes it's a double C so it's C on the one end and you hit the G on the two then you also hit the C on the three and the G on the four. The third bar is a full bar of the D so you hit that D on the one and let it ring. Then the fourth bar follows the same rhythm so one and two three four but this time we're going from the G to the D. That then lands back on the G as the one which is the start of our riff again. If you're struggling with the quick changes from the G to the C you can simplify the G chord by playing it just like this on the bottom few strings. This allows you to go back and forth from the C a little easier if you're struggling with that quick change. So use that riff altogether nice and slow and once again at full speed. The actual studio version of the song isn't quite played as straight as that but that was a slightly simplified version. The studio version is actually slightly ahead of the beat by an eighth note. This gives the song a little bit more of a push but if you think about that as being on the beat it does make it a little bit easier to learn otherwise you're trying to count the one beat as being the end of four and all the other beats are moved an eighth note forward as well. So just think of it as one because it makes it a little easier to digest. To get the tone for this song you want a humbucker guitar with a bridge humbucker selected and a big open overdriven sound. So I'm using the crunch voice with the KT-88 response because that's got a very high headroom. The fourth riff we're going to learn is the picked intro for the Guns N' Roses version of Not Good on Heaven's Door. This is played in E-flat tuning so you want to tune all your strings down half a step to E-flat, A-flat, D-flat, G-flat, B-flat, E-flat. You can practice this in standard tuning but if you want to play along with the track you're going to need to detune half a step. For this we're using the G without the second fret on the A string that we talked about at the start of the video and the D chord as well as the C. This is all picked except for the first chord. The picking pattern for this might seem quite quick straight away. Think of every single beat as being divided into 16th notes and it makes it a little easier to count. So we're counting one E-ander, two E-ander, three E-ander, four E-ander all the way through this pattern. So we start off with a single strum of the G from the low E to the B string. So don't catch that high E-note and this is going to last for one beat. So four 16th notes, one E-ander and then we're going to pick backwards E, B, G and then hit the B string once again. Then we go over to the D chord. On the third beat we're going to pick from the lowest note of the D to the highest note. Then on the fourth beat we're actually going to take the note on the high E string off. So this is now an open string. This makes the chord a D suspended too but just think of this as an open string being added to the D chord. We're going to pick backwards then E, B, G and then back to the B. So here's that bar all together. Then we come to a full bar on the C chord but we're still playing 16th notes all the way through. This bar looks a little bit complicated on paper but don't worry once you've gone over it nice and slow it does fall into place. So on the first beat we're playing the D and G strings open but then we're hammering on to the second fret of the D so that's our first two 16th notes. Playing the third fret of the A and then the open G. The second beat of this bar we're picking from the B string backwards so B, G, D and then hitting the high E string. On the third beat we're starting on the D string so we're going D, G, B and back to G again. And then on the fourth beat we're repeating that hammer on phrase from the first beat. So here's that bar all together. Here's that one all together nice and slow. And once again at full speed. To get this tone I'm using a humbucker guitar on the neck pickup with the clean bright voice and an EL34 response but I've also got some light chorusing going on as well. The final riff we're going to do is already gone by the eagles. Here's how this riff goes. So this uses the G, D and C chords with a little linking phrase in between. So we're starting off with the hit on the G so it's 1, 2 and then on the end of 2 we come in with this little run here. So that run is straight eighth note and 3 and 4 and but the 4 and is actually the bend up and down. You should also hammer on from the open to the second on the A. This then hits straight into a D chord on the one of the next bar which lasts for a full bar. Start on the third bar you hit the C then you repeat the same lick but this time starting on the D string. So it's open hammer on 2 on the D followed by open and 2 with a bend on the G. This then hits in the final bar on the C on the 1 and then you also hit the C chord again on the end of 2, the end of 3 and the 4th beat. So that's 1, 2 and 3 and 4. So here's that riff nice and slow. And once again at 4th speed. This riff is actually comprised of a couple of different parts. Obviously the eagles had three guitar players who all used different types of guitars. You can pretty much guarantee that a tallycaster was used somewhere on that track so I've gone for my Schergold Masquerader once again with the bridge pickup selected to get that nice tally I've got the clean warm voice selected on the amp but I've actually got the gain and the level set all the way up. This will create that sort of loud cranked amp sound. The amps that the eagles used were often pretty clean but they were driven hard with volume so this will get a nice little bit of break up just at the top end. And I've also got the 6R6 response selected. So there you go there are five classic riffs and how to dial in some similar tones using the Blackstar Silverline series. Like I said at the start of the video if you like the tones please head over to blackstarinsider.co.uk. You can download these patches from there. The links will be in the description below. Please check those out and let us know what you think of them. Thank you so much for watching. I hope you've enjoyed this video. Don't forget to check out Blackstar Potential on YouTube for more videos like this. And if you're looking for guitar teacher in your local area please check out mgrmusic.com. We've got a network of great teachers all over the country just waiting to help you guys out. Thanks so much for watching and we'll see you soon.