In the lead up to Christmas James Kuhel of Kirklees Guitar School has been running his annual ‘Riffmas’ competition. James provides a YouTube lesson and guitar tab PDF for a famous guitar riff. Facebook group members then submit clips of themselves attempting to play the riff. Each video clip that we share to the group earns one entry into a draw, this year to win a carbon fibre travel guitar or one of two guitar pedals. As I’m trying to learn some lead guitar I decided to give it a go, even though the chosen riffs are outside my normal musical tastes, some massively so! None are from songs that I have ever played, sung or aspired toward.
However doing so created learning opportunities in both guitar technique and the use of my amp / effects pedal settings, trying to achieve a sound at least similar to the original. Some of my attempts have been more successful than others!
The riffs than I have attempted are:
| Riff No. | Song & Artist |
|---|---|
| 1 | Do I Wanna Know – Artic Monkeys |
| 2 | Message In a Bottle – The Police |
| 3 | My Sharona – The Knack |
| 4 | Enter Sandman – Metallica |
| 5 | Roadhouse Blues – The Doors |
| 6 | Black Night – Deep Purple |
| 7 | La Grange – ZZTop |
| 8 | TNT – AC/DC |
