Good rhythm riffs to work on?

Playing Technique
#1

my rhythm playing skills and riffs need to become more aggressive. Mine tend to be a bit more “groovy” and laid back. I remember a few years back trying to play along with S.A.T.O. after it kicks in and it was not good lol.

What are some good hard rock/metal riffs to work on? I just ran across the song “Destruction Overdrive” by BLS. Thats about the right feel

I might work a bit on VH “Im the one” too

any others? I guess BLS makes sense as im in D standard

1 Like
#2

Extreme - Cynical or Waiting for the Punchline

groovy, laid back yet also aggressive

while you’re on with VH, Unchained and Mean Streets are good ones to have down.

6 Likes
#3

yeah I think im going to go thru a lot of Ozzys stuff with Zakk and maybe Jake. Maybe some Badlands too.

The issue becomes tuning. Like I just went to jam along to Miracle man but I see im 1/2 step off lol. I guess it makes sense to group songs into the same tunings.

Wow, Extreme fell off the radar so hard I never even heard of that album lol

#4

I tend to just play stuff in whatever tuning the guitar I’m currently holding is in.

But then I never play along to recordings.

1 Like
#5

well some stuff is pretty topical for the specific tuning. Like the standard metallish stuff in F#m with specific pulloffs or open strings etc. Then of course like drop D is a thing unto itself

#6

I think Symphony X does quite a bit of stuff in D Standard. They have their fair share of modern, chug-a-lug riffs.

3 Likes
#7

this is where improvement either takes place or it doesnt.

just trying to play Miracle Man intro riff. wow, feel like ive been playing 1 year instead of 31. uggh

what would EXACT picking directions be on this?

E------------------5-----------
B------------------5-----------
G----------------------4–2--1
D----------------------4–2--2
A-------------------------------
E–0--2–2--2----------------

pick every note on low E or hammer 2nd note?

Im assuming downstroke on high E and B?

up down up on middle strings?

1 Like
#8

Try out Gojira

3 Likes
#9

I mean, I think this riff is pretty tricky and requires some finesse to nail with all the string changes. I’m monkeying around with it and I’m finding myself picking all low E notes, downstroke on high E + B strings and downstroking all hits on the middle strings (or something down-up-down).

I remember using “Holocaust” by Savatage for rhythm practice once. Love this riff! The subtle gallops and sliding octaves took a bit of work to tighten up.

1 Like
#10

Sooo, after reading “riffs” i got a little hasty and wrote a list of some riffs i like. Then i decided it might be a good thing to actually read your post and realized most of them might not be what you are looking for, exept maybe the 2nd one and that is in droppedC#. iirc. I guess i should work on my communication skills (right after i got my picking down)

I ll leave them there in case somebody hasnt heard these classics, srry for kidnapping the thread.

Here is my riff-warmup-routine:

  1. Behemoth; Conquer All
    Its an easy riff and not very fast, but it allows me to focus on doing relaxed triplets, which really where just short spasms before. The second (bridge) riff isnt as catchy but i ll do it once or twice for single-string tremolo picking (listening to the song again i dont even think he is using tremolo picking there but #yolo)
  1. CoB: Are you dead yet
    Maybe some people cant hear this riff for the 324352time but i think its super fun. Its valuable because Downstrokes+Accentuation personally always tempt me to hit the string harder that i’d have to. To not mess up here i need to chill, which is what i want. Original is played in a dropped tuning but should work for standart as well.
  1. Slayer; Payback. Because its brutal. Might be too trivial for your taste.
  1. Slayer; Epidemic, the first three riffs.
    Not complex but very fast for me, like 210bpm. The patterns are very intuitive, but i still often cramp up here, which is why i put payback in before to carefully get the triplets up to speed. The legato-riff is a real gem :slight_smile:
  1. Cannibal corpse, hammer smashed face, first 2 riffs
    For whatever reason string changes during tremolo-picking often throws me off, so i included this. The second riff sounds technical but really is super easy, so its nice to have it ready if you ever need to impress a drummer. It might not be what you are looking for, though, pretty different from BLS.

Afterwards i start to work on fiddly stuff (if i dont get dragged into the limbo and play one of them for 2 hours).

And if in doubt, always play Black Sabbath!

3 Likes
#11

I mean if you want to improve your technical rhythm playing, “Puppets” is pretty much the beginning and end. “Holy Wars” is probably worth a look too.

3 Likes
#12

I came here to say this. Put in Holy Wars and just go.

But Puppets is super overrated IMO. “lol can u downpick”

1 Like
#13

You try to downpick at that speed. :rofl:

5 Likes
#14

I haven’t in ages! I used to burn through the whole album once a day when I was a kid. I should give it a shot again. (I swear the fish was this big!)

2 Likes
#15

its all good brother. I appreciate the comprehensive reply. The Laiho thing is cool because I can see what he is doing lol

1 Like
#16

For some classic power metal rhythms I’d suggest the Italian band Domine, this track for example:

EDIT: I trascribed this one in fact, in case you are interested! (By ear so may not be 100% exact)

1 Like
#17

What kind of metal do you like and from what time period? It’s a really broad question to focus in on.

3 Likes
#18

its not so much even “metal” per se. The term itself means a million different things to a million different people.

Im way more of a hard rock/classic rock guy than id ever be a “metal” guy. if it has scream/growl singing im not going to listen more than 3 seconds lol.

Mainly I just need to work on my riffing, especially stuff using alt picking on the low E string. I feel quite limited and even bored with my current riff playing and writing abilities

just working on Miracle Man by Ozzy…half the time when I go to pick the first 4 notes I end up picking too lightly and the hand just stop lol.

A lot of other times I end up getting confused on when there should be down or upstrokes since on occasion there is a legato note

mainly what would help me would be CLEARLY ARTICULATED riffs with tablature. Some of the really high speed metal riffs on the low e just sound like mush to me. Half of it you really cant hear whats going on in the first place

if I become really strong at BLS, AIC type riffs ill be somewhat happy

2 Likes
#19

You and me both. There’s a massive dearth of (accurate) tablature or notation for metal, and it’s even worse if you’re mostly into obscure 90s metal like I am. I’ve basically resigned myself to never getting covers note-for-note perfect at least for the bands I like.

With modern metal bands you can hear what’s going on, even if the trade-off is that many of the guys in modern metal bands are quantizing to a grid or punching in to get that level of clarity. In the worst case scenario they are fraud hacks who can’t play their material live, which is also very common. You basically end up wasting time trying to cover material that they can’t even play lmao.

I think if you stick to the bands you mentioned you’re more than well off because they are established acts with followings and tons of covers. Sometimes you get lucky and can message a YouTuber asking if they have a PDF or GPX file.

2 Likes
#20

The song “Sea Of Lies” by Symphony X will work WONDERS for your rhythm playing.

2 Likes