Riff Rundown
Difficulty: Easy – Intermediate
Composer – Guns N’ Roses
Where to find this song – Appetite For Destruction track #
4
Release Date – April 1987
The Band:
Axl Rose – vocals
Slash – guitar
Izzy Stradlin – guitar
Duff “Rose” McKagan – bass
Steven Adler – drums
The Bio:
At a time when pop was dominated by dance music and pop-metal, Guns
N’ Roses brought raw, ugly rock & roll crashing back into the charts.
They were not nice boys; nice boys don’t play rock & roll. They
were ugly, misogynist, and violent; they were also funny, vulnerable,
and occasionally sensitive, as their breakthrough hit, “Sweet
Child O’ Mine,” showed.
Main Riff
The overall concept of this riff isn’t too difficult. What you will
be working with are variations of power chords. You will begin by playing
the “D” string and the “G” string open at the same
time. After that, you will need to barre your 1st finger over the third
frets on the “low E” string, the “A” string, and
the “D” string. By doing this, you are allowing yourself
a much easier approach to the next part of the measure. After you have
picked out the “low E” string note, and then played the other
notes on the third frets, all you need to do now is use your 3rd and
4th finger to play the fifth frets on the “A” string and
the “D” string together. Notice that at the end of this measure
you will just end it with your 1st finger on the third fret on the “low
E” string. The third measure is also identical to this measure.
For the second and fourth measures, you will need to play standard
power chords. Notice that the measure opens with you playing almost
what you played in the first measure, on different strings. Place
your 1st finger on the third fret on the “A” string, and
your 3rd and 4th fingers on the “D” string and the “G” string
on the fifth frets. Then, all you have to do is move the first and
third frets on the same strings to play the next part of the measure.
You will wrap up this measure by playing the “D” string
and the “G” string open once, and then using any finger
on the third frets of the same strings. End the measure by playing
the open strings again.
Riff Resources