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50 of The Greatest Guitar Riffs of all Time

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50 greatest guitar riffs of all times

There’s something about playing guitar riffs. Creating that cool sound with your own bare fingers while sliding down and bending up those strings feels just like pure magic. Ain’t nothing like it.

Also the excitement of learning and eventually mastering a challenging riff is unbelievably fulfilling.

Let alone playing that riff with a real band will give you a true adrenaline rush. Yes that’s why we love to play riffs.

A little while ago I created a list with “50 of The Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time”. After that I got a lot of requests for a “Greatest Riffs of all Time” list. And I thought ‘yeah why not?’ So here you are.

As most of you know the lists on Guitarhabits are in no particular order and they are never complete. The lists are here to inspire and to motivate.

You might discover a riff or song on the list that you haven’t thought of before and would really like to learn. Maybe you’ll get some new ideas for practice or encounter a “mustknowriff” for your repertoire. It’s all here.

I was thinking about my personal favorite and it’s just too hard to choose only one. There are too many brilliant creations and all unique in their own way. I love the simplicity of “highway to hell”, the beautiful, mysterious, wah wah riff of “Voodoo child”, I have a weak spot for almost every guitar riff by John Frusciante or Slash and not to mention the zillion riffs that aren’t even on the list. Thank god it never stops.

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The 5 Major Scale CAGED Shapes – Positions

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If you know how to play the major scale in one position and you’re ready to learn to play it all over the fretboard then this lesson is the next step.

If you haven’t played the major scale before you might wanna check out this post first: How to Play The Major Scale Guitar Guide for Beginners and Intermediate.

The major scale is the mother of all scales and your reference point for all other scales. That’s why it’s so important to master all of these five scale shapes.

The five C-A-G-E-D scale shapes (C shape, A shape, G shape, E shape and D shape) surround the entire fretboard. The “shapes” are sometimes also referred to as “positions”. In this post we use the G major scale as an example. So all five scale shapes (see below) are G major scale.

You can apply these scale shapes to all 12 keys by simply moving the shapes up or down the fretboard. For example: If you move the five shapes up a whole step (2 frets) then all the shapes are in the key of A, so you have five A major scale shapes.

The five scale shapes are derived from the CAGED system. If you’re not sure what the CAGED system is all about check out: What is The CAGED System? (The Keys to The Fretboard)

Each scale shape is related to a chord shape and surrounds that chord shape so you can easily identify the name of each scale shape. In each diagram below you can see the scale shape and the chord shape (made up of the red and green dots) that is surrounded by the scale shape.

PLAYING THE SCALE SHAPES / POSITIONS

If you look at the diagrams, play each scale shape starting from the lowest root note (the red note) then play all the way up (ascending) to the last note on the high E-string, then play all the way down (descending) to the first note on the low E-string and then play up again to the first root note you’ll hit upon. The tablature shows you how to play each scale shape ascending and descending.

Tips

– Practice the scale shapes with a pick using alternate picking technique (down, up, down, up, etc.)
– Practice slowly first and make sure each note sounds clean and clear.
– Try to visualize the chord shape in each scale shape.
– Make sure you can play each scale shape thoroughly before moving on to the next.
– Be patient and persistent, it takes some time to get them all under your belt.
– Repetition and regular practice is the key to success!

Have fun!

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Announcement: 50 Cool Blues Licks Improvisation

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Today I announce the arrival of my brand new guitar course:
50 COOL BLUES LICKS IMPROVISATION

“The Road To Playing Cool Blues Licks,
Mastering The Blues Scale, Improvising and Getting Motivated”

I’ve worked on this for quite a while and yes now it’s coming!

 

As a guitar teacher, guitar player and blogger I see a lot of guitar players are using the pentatonic scale for soloing and improvisation and that’s great because it’s a very practical an important scale that can be used for a lot of styles like blues, rock, metal, pop, country, etc.

For me it was also the first scale I learned, but after some time I noticed I got stuck soloing in just one position/shape for too long. I knew a few ways to break out of that shape area, but that was pretty much it. I felt limited.

I did know how to play the other pentatonic shapes but it was hard to make nice melodies or phrase fluently with all the other shapes. Somehow they didn’t seem to work really well.

Until I started learning the blues scale shapes and how to use them for improvising. It opened up a whole new world of possibilities. I was able to solo across the entire fretboard, it felt so natural and easy to do. It completely changed the way I was playing.

 

So over the years I got a lot of questions from the readers of guitarhabits about licks, the pentatonic / blues scale and improvisation. I thought, why not make a complete tablature Ebook with everything that combines those lessons I’ve learned over the years including video support and MP3 play along tracks. And so I began that journey…

 

With “50 Cool Blues Licks Improvisation” I will teach you a lot of awesome cool blues licks that you can use for your own solos and improvisation, but there’s more…

I want you to learn what’s behind the licks, how to break them up, turn them around, make up new ones, create different combinations and learn to play everything in every key like a real pro.

And those tools will be the perfect recipe for the chapters that follow, where you will learn how to play the 5 blues scale shapes all explained slowly in close up with effective exercises, tips, tricks and improvisation examples to master the blues scale inside out.

If you think this is for you, this is the time to really take your improvisation skills to the next level.

 

I know you are used to my free guitar lessons and they will sure continue to be, but because of the hosting, traffic and other costs that came up with the making of “50CBLI” and to keep the Ebook, play along tracks and more than 190 minutes of video lessons online for download I charge a rather small price of $69 dollars.

If you want to get out of your rut and advance your guitar playing check out the website to find out more:

WWW.50COOLBLUESLICKSIMPROVISATION.COM

 

Best regards,
Klaus Crow

 

 
 

5 Beautiful Ways to Play a II-V-I Jazz Chord Progression

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I just love figuring out different ways to play a jazz chord progression or just mixing up jazz chords with other styles of music.

It can add nice flavors to a song and give it some extra magic. It’s really fun to experiment with that.

Learning jazz expands your guitar vocabulary to a whole new level if you are ready for it.

In the meantime it’s just fun to play some beautiful jazz chord progressions and it will certainly contribute to your playing skills and creativity as well.

There are also more advanced II-V-I’s than the ones I show here but these are really nice to start out with and get your feet in the dirt. It can be a little bit overwhelming if you learn to play jazz chords and progressions for the first time, but after a few runs you’ll get the hang of it. You’ll be amazed!

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