Quick Riffs: Guitar Songs to Improve the Speed of Your Playing
TABs to help speed up your guitar skills
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Quick riffs can be daunting as a guitarist. But shredding doesn’t have to be as scary as it may seem. Let’s break down these faster riffs and see how they can help you improve.
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Quick Riffs: Slow and steady wins the race
If, like me, you’ve never been able to get to grips with playing quickly on the guitar, then you’ve come to the right place. Don’t get me wrong, I can command my fingers with vigour, but it’s not like I’ll be sweep picking at 200bpm anytime soon…
Therefore, quick riffs can appear challenging upon first inspection. However, there are ways that we can split them up to make them easier to swallow. The best way to approach faster playing is to start slowly, and build your speed as your progress develops.
So, let us look at some quick riffs to see what they’re all about. Also, if they’re as difficult as they sound.
Crazy Train – Ozzy Osbourne
Kicking us off, we’ve got arguably the easiest riff in this list. The speed is perfectly agreeable and the notes aren’t too challenging.
As we work across these quick riffs, you’ll spot a common theme. Alternate picking. This picking technique will no doubt increase the amount of notes that we can play across various phrases.
The Crazy Train riff works around a couple of frets, and uses entirely 8th notes. Also known as quavers, we’d count the notes within this bar as one and two and three and four and. Overall, providing a great pulse and foundation to work on your skills.
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The Trooper – Iron Maiden
Next up, we’ve got some pounding early British Metal. Straight from the early 1980s, The Trooper has a thunderous main riff that is one to watch out for.
This time, we’re going to look at two riffs from one song. Labelled as Riffs A & B. Riff A is the initial riff that you hear at the start of the track. Whereas riff B is the main theme of the song that repeats from time to time.
The beginning quick riff is pretty manageable. Sliding down from the 7th fret of the A string, there’s a lot of repetition across different frets with some pull-offs. Riff B however comprises of some tight finger work and hammer-ons. Thankfully, the picking hand isn’t too stressed here. Again, start slowly and build up as you get more confident.
What makes playing quickly easier? Well, a low action and a thin neck both help. So, something like an Ibanez will get you where you want to be:
Master Of Puppets – Metallica
Now, regular readers will know that this isn’t the first time we’ve featured this song. And in all honesty, I doubt it’ll be the last.
Regardless if we’re looking at quick riffs or not, this track teaches so many good habits and lessons for guitarists. Initially, the 211bpm speed is daunting, but once you get comfortable it becomes easier to feel. What can we learn from this then?
Whether it’s the opening power chords or single string riffs, it’s a great track to learn. Here, we’re looking at the main riff where amazingly, James Hetfield doesn’t use alternate picking! That’s some serious right-hand strength.
Last Resort – Papa Roach
Rapidly approaching 20 years old, this hit for Papa Roach is the next quick riff in our line up. However, for this one we’ll need to be in Drop D.
Unlike Master Of Puppets, this track has a fairly sedate bpm, but uses entirely 16th notes to form the main theme. Whereby, we’d play 16 notes per bar as semi-quavers. 1e+a, 2e+a, 3e+a, 4e+a.
Likewise, alternate picking will really help us out when playing this quick riff. Furthermore, what will also help is your finger placement on the fretboard. Memorising the shapes and patterns will ultimately allow you to play faster. Which is the aim of the game.
To help get into the right Drop D tuning, a guitar tuner is always handy. But did you know that there are loads of options to choose from?
Miserlou – Dick Dale
Our final quick riff sees us take a dive into some surf guitar. Dick Dale pioneered the surf sound back in the 1960s, and this track keeps coming back time and time again. Why? Because it’s awesome.
The best way to describe this one is to say that it’s very fiddly. To most of us, it sounds like Dale is just playing as quickly as he can in a linear way. However, it’s much more niche than that. Paul Davids does a great job of explaining just how it should be done.
Did you know that Dick Dale’s guitar set up was somewhat unusual? Playing a Fender Stratocaster is nothing new and he was a left handed player, but had the strings upside down. Essentially, the low E string was closer to the floor, and the high E was up at the top. Overall, allowing him to spank that low E in such a way to write this killer riff.
This track houses the unmistakable sound of Stratocaster with a tonne of reverb. Luckily for us, there are still ways that we can capture that surf sound!
Quick Riffs: Play it like you mean it
So, are you ready to take up the tempo? Well, maybe not yet. But if you take these riffs as the templates for future developments, your progress will just keep increasing.
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