1:32 - *Nirvana* - "Breed" 3:29 - *John Mayer* - "Vultures" 4:56 - *Wolfmother* - "The Joker & The Thief" 6:08 - *RAtM* - "Killing In The Name" 8:05 - *Judas Priest* - "Breaking The Law" 9:16 - *Blink* - 182 - "All The Small Things" 10:39 - *Radiohead* - "Weird Fishes" 12:18 - *Metallica* - "Sad But True" 14:12 - *Incubus* - "Rogues" 16:00 - *Led Zeppelin* - Whole Lotta Love 17:49 - *Muse* - "Psycho" I remember when I bought my first guitar a half year ago and the first riff I tried to learn was "Psycho". I wasn't even trying to play "Smoke on Water", " Seven Nation Army" or "Happy Birthday". I've spent nearly whole week trying to learn it.
@@dirtydanthesecretsauceman8519 It is a political bot. What purpose it serves, I am not sure. It has posted this comment in response to every popular comment on this video.
00:01:31 Breed - Nirvana 00:03:19 Vultures - John Mayer 00:04:55 The Joker & The Thief - Wolfmother 00:06:07 Killing in the Name - Rage Against The Machine 00:08:03 Breaking the Law - Judas Priest 00:09:15 All the Small Things - blink -182 00:10:37 Weird Fishes/Arpeggi - Radiohead 00:12:18 Sad But True - Metallica 00:14:11 Rogues - Incubus 00:15:59 Whole Lotta Love - Led Zeppelin 00:17:49 Psycho - Muse 00:19:59 ?
For anyone learning acoustic out there I found (by accident) that Alice In Chains "down in a hole" was the perfect beginner song. It has a super short finger style intro, teaches you switching from one easy open chord to another in the verses and has a power chord chorus for good measure. It even has 2 whole bends! I couldn't possibly think of a better beginner song.
@@gavriilkremastiotis1914 I was gonna say that! I learned guitar through heaven beside you. That song got my fingers used to bends and weird movements.
@@dbodooley I think that - if George wrote all the intro riffs to the iconic Beatle songs - Daytripper, Ticket to Ride etc then he was the greatest intro riff writer of all time as they are always distinctive and you know instantly which song it is.
Weird Fishes has been one of my favorite riffs for several years. Glad to see Tyler shining light on another Radiohead riff (the first was 15 Step - also from In Rainbows 😊)
@@thefakengx3839 well yeah, if you only play Thom's part. I've been trying to include parts of Jonny's solo and the intro bass in my acoustic covers, and it's pretty tricky imo.
The famous guitar riff at the beginning of crazy train is a great one in my opinion because especially for a beginner it brings a little speed to the table and utilizes all 7 notes in the key
If you have an acoustic guitar: Hurt - Johnny cash Nice harmony, easy and fun to play! Never - All the luck in the world One of my favorite riffs of all time. Really really easy to play. Check it out! In the Tabs you would find one with the capo on the 6th fret but you can also play without capo just holdin the D major chord :) Behind blue eyes - limp bizkit This song is carrying itself. Now the electric guitar: Slow dancing in a burning room - John Mayer Cool Intro Riff, use the thump on the e string though. The one or other Green Day song Catchy rhythms to practice and learn, sounds good and just more badass when played in a band! Metallica - enter sandman (Just to fill this comment) Have fun! 👋🏻
On Whole Lotta Love: "all down strokes" not on the videos I've seen of Page playing it. And learning how to play it without doing only downstrokes was a step forward for me when I was starting out. Also, more importantly, the bend should be pushed up, not pulled down, to avoid muting the open D string that should be played, and the bend creates tension against that.
Page is notoriously sloppy when playing live as opposed to his playing in the studio. Could be from years of heroin abuse. Could be he forgot how to play his songs. Could be he’s bored and likes to mix things up. Could be an attempt at replicating the sound of overdubbed guitars. Could be he ran out of fucks. It’s all part of his charm!
I would add Omerta by Lamb of God for the more metally people here. Good for your tight rhythm, practicing more intricate picking patterns and pinch harmonics
Enter Sandman, every time. Great, heavy riff, that gives the player a small slide, a string-skip, and then a nice chugging powerchord move at the end that just sounds badass.
DescaSatou R U Mine is better to learn later, that quick pentatonic he plays is really hard as a beginner, I know cause it was like the second song I tried to learn and had to come back to it later when I could play faster
My Own Summer by Deftones is one of the first riffs I ever learned. It's so easy that I taught it to my nephews who don't even play guitar regularly. It's super heavy and fluid, which makes it a blast to play. Also, 46&2 by Tool is a great simple riff that sounds amazing. Those are 2 of my favorite bands and favorite guitarists, not only because I love their sounds, but because they don't try to overplay and outshine their bandmates. As with all great music, I think, the whole is more important than the sum of its parts. It also bears mentioning that Deftones and Tool both feature two of the greatest drummers of their generation.
I’d put Soothsayer by bucket head, it’s a little more of an intermediate song but even if you can’t crazy shred it’s a fun song to play along too, even the scale he uses for the solo is pretty easy to get the hang of and it’s good to start out soloing over Edit: also the first song I learned to play on guitar was more then a feeling by Boston
Intermediate? Hell the opening and main verses may be intermediate, but then it goes into hard and then insane level of difficulty. If you want less shreddy: Sail On Soothsayer is a nice easy - intermediate Buckethead song. As is Swomee Swan. Hospitality is a good one that's a bit more advanced.
Ross Henderson that’s why I said, not when it gets into the more shreddy parts, but if you follow the patterns in the song you can figure out the scale He’s using and you can still solo, and honestly a lot of the shredding in this song isn’t super difficult, it’s just fast strumming, I didn’t say it was fun to play note for note, it’s fun to solo along too, but I get where you’re coming from
Sage Rockhound honestly I don’t know what it’s called, it’s a variation on the eb minor pentatonic, if you look at the tabs and look at the notes he plays it should give you a general idea, actually let me just try and type out the tabs This is tuned down a half step Low E string- 12 14 15 A- 12 14 D- 11 12 14 G- 11 12 14 B- 12 14 15 High E string- 12 14 15 Hopefully you can understand that 😅
Pretty much any Black Sabbath riff, Paranoid, Iron Man, Into the Void, Sweet Leaf, The Wizard, N.I.B., all of the basic ones kick ass and are relatively easy to play
For beginning, I'd say When I Come Around. As a Green Day fan, it's actually a song i've always been very "meh" on, but learning that rhythm for the first time when I was young was such a great learning experience. Great with teaching timing and palm muting.
Green Day is a gold mine for songs that are catchy and unique but still simple. Brain Stew is the obvious one, but learning Good Riddance really helped me with quick picking songs and When I Come Around and BOBD helped with barre chords. Different story if you play bass or drums though
Thank you so much!! This is the exact video I've been looking for, I'm at a stage where I'd still call myself a beginner but I know the basics and have been looking for songs to improve my playing, its so hard to find videos that match my current level and this is exactly what I've been trying to find. You are a life saver dude.
"Lochness", by Judas Priest "The Eagle has Landed", or "Strong Arm of the Law", by Saxon "Fatman", by Nazareth "Dominance and Submission", by Blye Oyster Cult "Beating the Odds", by Molly Hatchet "Send me on my way", by Rusted Roots I feel like (I am a beginner myself) they are not that difficult, but they have interesting techniques, and they require precision, while being accessible, and incredibly satisfying when you master them (I'm looking at you, Lochness) Just my opinion, though :3
My first Song ive learned was Hells Bells by AC/DC. Not just the Riff is perfect to get comfortable with the guitar, the solo is also nice to get in contact with pentatonic🔥🔥
I feel like the shes so heavy part could easily be made in to metal or something, imagine the organ being replaced with screaming and stuff, the vocals are already a bit loud also
@@thelegendofhuman my uncle would argue that it was the very first song that influenced heavy metal, and based on when it was released I don't exactly disagree
Personally, I think a *ton* of tool riffs are just simplistic enough for intermediate beginners or so to grasp while still working interesting timing & techniques
First riff I started with was the intro to pink Floyd's wish you were here, plus the solo, bends, double string slides, and picking with chords it's an all inclusive package
I'm a big Metallica guy, so I started with all of Sad But True (on an acoustic no less), then did the Intro to Dyers Eve. The Orion riff, The Trooper intro (Iron Maiden) and Seek and Destroy are my favorite riffs to play.
@@lukebarboza4015 id sell my first son and fifth daughter for that guitar man... not my second, third or fourth daughter though.. they costed too much to create ... fifth one tho .. she’s good to go.. and the son is the devils spawn in pretty sure so I kinda need to pawn him off on someone or something else honestly ... anyone want a three year old who can speak mandarin and Italian backwards at the same time?
Nice one. I remember learning it WAY early because it sounded like you were getting something DONE. We also may be around the same age to have had that one as a fave.
Ghost - Square Hammer is one of the absolute best metal riffs to learn. The riff itself has some slightly tricky fingering depending on which tuning you use, the verse teaches consistent palm muting, while the chorus puts both together. It’s easy to throw on tonnes of gain and make it sound kinda correct. Hard to get it perfect. Also the solo is a great beginner solo for metal
Poly by Nirvana. It was the first song I learned how to play, even before smoke on the water, and it's always the first thing I play when I pick up a guitar. 10/10 would recommend!!!
Thanks for your video. I’m getting back into the guitar after a 20 year hiatus to encourage my 12-year-old son to pick up the guitar. We’re well on our way thanks to videos like yours. Many thanks!
Stone the Crow by Down, Planets Collide by Crowbar, Life's been good by Joe Walsh, Dramamine by Modest mouse, Lysergik Funeral Procession by Down, Over the hills and far away by Zep. Really a ton of good riffs that teach you something. String skipping, hammering and pulling off, proper finger placement, yadda yadda.
As a beginner, I'd like to say that it would be really helpful if you pointed out which strings you're holding down and slowed down a bit. Maybe have a side panel showing the fretboard and which strings are being held, which are played open and which are muted. It would really help us super beginners lol.
Any have tabs for these? It seems like it ought to be simple to figure out, but I can’t see exactly where the finger are going and, at least for me, it’s difficult to here if I’m hitting the right notes if my amp isn’t tuned close to that sound. Ibanez Gio HHS and Vox AD50VT.
Rage Against the Machine song is in Drop D Tuning. Low E string is tuned down to D. Great first Drop D song to learn. Great mix of songs, Music is Win!
Some of my go-to riffs are Just Got Paid by ZZ Top, Young Lust and In The Flesh? by Pink Floyd and Cirice/Square Hammer by Ghost, those riffs are just so good to play
Definitely agree on the Ghost songs. Those two helped me develop things like my picking technique and palm muting, the Cirice solo also helped me a lot with bending
Throw it in Drop D, “love bites so do I” Halestorm the intro is a good warm up and practice as it’s a definite riff for timing and articulation practice. It’s heavy but simple
For me the 12 riff is Riff Raff by AC/DC. Its not really polular riff (for me its underrated) but for me it was first riff i really enjoyed playing it, beacouse its fast and it rocks and i felt like i am already getting somewhere. 🤘
Heaviest riff to me might be "Into the Void", or any of those dark-ass chunky ones from the riff-master Tony Iommi! Another one that comes to mind is Zach Wylde doing "No More Tears" with Ozzy.
For the fellow metalheads out there, you can use Metallica's Whiplash to help master that killer downpicking that made James Hetfield so famous. Lots of downpicked, palm-muted chugging on the low E at breakneck pace
Picking accuracy -- easy - Oasis - half the world away -- harder - 'Van Halen - Ain't talking bout love' - - harder-- 'Radiohead - fade out' Pinch harmonics - Pantera - cemetery gates Alternate picking - 'Muse - Hysteria' -- 'Avenged Sevenfold - unholy confessions' Fingering consistency - Muse - plug in baby These riffs are all fun to play for hours🤘🤙 (and Stairway to Heaven if no one else can hear you!)
But... Breed. He bends the A powerchord slightly, almost up to a A#. Killing. He only plays the E string on those three notes before the "lead" part. Love. He involves the D string on the second round. B D B D(D). That's why it has that thicker sound and somewhat ringing sound.
One of the first beginner songs I learned was Arpeggios From Hell by Yngwie Malmsteen. It's not too difficult to play, but it provides a nice warm up to loosen your fingers up for more challenging songs.
while it’s definitely not a beginner song, master of puppets was the most beneficial song i learned when i was starting out. it took me about 5 months of playing to get it down, but it really helped the precision and speed of my rhythm playing.
"In The Meantime" by Spacehog, and "In The Flesh?" by Pink Floyd have some of the most killer riffs I have ever heard! Playing them is super super fun. When I first heard them I was like 'These sound Impossible, there is absolutely no way I'll ever be able to play them.' But after practicing for 2 hours on each one, I got them almost perfect.
Just started learning guitar six months ago and learned to play the intro to La Grange almost right out of the gate. Was straight forward enough for me and huge fun. I love it.
The main "riff" (if we can call that a riff, I'm not cultured enough to know) is really great with the bend. It's pretty easy to play too, even though it can be painful for beginners since you have to use your pinky. But it's an awesome training to start with !
Marilyn Manson - Sweet Dreams (are made of this) I’m a beginner and learning this riff helped me learn sliding and power cords, and it’s also a very nice sounding riff
Honestly you, rob scallon, and paul davids make learning guitar fun af. Ive tried searching around for as many people as possible but they either never have the energy or quality to keep my attention.
I never got great, but there were a few riffs I loved to play that are easy enough: Black Sabbath has a ton of good ones for beginners - Iron Man, NIB, Children of the Grave, War Pigs, Paranoid, Sweet Leaf, Into the Void, and Hole in the Sky were some of my favorites. A few others: AC/DC - Whole Lotta Rosie Iron Maiden - Fear of the Dark Iron Maiden - The Trooper (Good for pushing yourself faster as it's fairly repetitive) The Animals - House of the Rising Sun (just a four chord progression with a repeatable pick pattern) Bob Dylan - House of the Rising Sun (When I got bored of The Animals' version) Motley Crue - Kickstart my Heart Metallica - Fade to Black Metallica - Master of Puppets (also good for getting speed up) Metallica - One
In the spirit of the lead line from Rogues being in this, got to suggest the beginning of Swing Life Away. Gives you a real understanding of how to get to grips with harmonics The intro of Victory over the sun by Biffy Clyro is also an interesting one: start of the intro works as a light fingerpicking exercise/warm up in really basic chord positions (focused on a bread and butter 2-3-2 DMaj triad), but the riff the forms the backbone of the verses is all about accurate slides on the D (7-9) then A (7-10) strings which make you break out of basic muscle memory. They're both also just fun licks to play.
I’m a beginner myself, but one riff that is a ton of fun to learn/play, at least for me, is “the Red” by Chevelle. Super easy, sounds sick asf and is one of my personal favorite songs. Sounds great, fun to play, and easy to learn!
I have my son working on 'Electric Funeral' right now. Next, I think we'll do either 'Angry Chair' or 'Sweet Dreams'. After that I'm thinking some drop-D stuff, either 'Sober' or 'The Beautiful People'.
On "whole Lotta love" there's an open D played at the same time while the D 5th fret is micro bending, that's what gives the chorus like effect. Cheers
I feel like "Enter Sandman" has a great mix of fun and technique: fun because it's an easy song to learn and play and techniques in there are palm muting and quickly playing between palm mutes and octave technique like in the prechorus or clean intro
Tyler: "Ahh, this takes me back to my middle school days." Me: I was already married and had a kid on the way when Enema came out. Just put me in the grave now.
"Burn" by Deep Purple: Helps with double stop pull-offs. "Long Cool Woman" by The Hollies "Mississippi Queen" by Mountain: All of it. Great intro to the late great Leslie West!!!
Master of Puppets - Metallica. Apart from the solo it’s a great beginner tune. The intro descending from the 12th is good practice for timing your pick hand and fret hand. The next part is good for the fretting hand doing the 1st-4th stretch. Then the verse part sliding the power chord around is good for accuracy.
Kinda hard for a beginner to slow down to a manageable speed though, hahah I'd recommend Ride The Lightning or Bell Tolls for rhythm personally, they're both a bit easier to play (though RTL is very tiring, builds up the alt picking and palm muting a ton)
My list 1. Eternity's Breath. Mahavishnu Orchestra 2. Highway to Hell. AC/DC 3. Hocus Pocus. Focus 4. Sweet Jane (live). Lou Reed 5. Satisfaction. Rolling Stones 6. Iron Man. Black Sabbath 7. Since You've Been Gone. Rainbow(originally Russ Ballard) 8. Smoke on the Water. Deep Purple 9. In a Gadda da Vida. Iron Butterfly 10. Sunshine of your Love. Cream
Yuri Wieland and get doesn’t play an e power chord, Kurt just plays it as a rake on the open strings, and he doesn’t play it like a regular power chord he usually just slams his fingers down on the fretboard barring the root 5 octave and idk what’s the other note but he hits the g string too
@@snoopdoge191 Sometimes he gets the G string to sound out which turns the power chord into a sus4 chord. It's probably best to not put too much emphasis on getting the G string in there, but don't try to too much to not get the G string there too. But yeah, playing a Nirvana song with a two note power chord seems like a fairly obvious mistake. Edit: Oh well, whatever, nevermind, I'm an idiot.
hearing rogues on this list made me happy. incubus is one of my favorite bands, anf that song in particular makes me wanna listyen to the whole record again
Same I'm playing through that song now, lots of picking, and Palm Muting, plus that little bridge 5 7 0 5 7 0 7 9 0 7 9 0 and then the 5 0 7 7 0 9 octave thing that helps with learning damping individuals strings. Good stuff. Incidentally how long you being playing for?
