Article published April 27, 2008
Rock's greatest riffs: The memorable ones grab you and pull you into a song
Joe Boes, a Toledo musician who teaches at Durdel's Music Center, says the popularity of hip-hop and even grunge - which had heavy guitars but generally isn't considered riff rock - have changed the musical landscape.
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THE BLADE/ANDY MORRISON
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By ROD LOCKWOOD
BLADE STAFF WRITER
Brothers and sisters, would-be guitar heroes, and worshipers of rock, let us take a few moments to celebrate the glory of a great riff.
It’s the glue that makes a song stick in your brain like cotton candy on a child’s pudgy little fingers. It’s the musical flame that sears your soul. It’s what you play when you’re showing off your new guitar to your buddies.
Think “Layla,” and “Iron Man.” Think “Whole Lotta Love,” “Foxy Lady,” “You Shook Me All Night Long,” “Seven Nation Army,” “Pretty Woman,” “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and “Sweet Child O’ Mine.”
The list goes on forever and we all know them when we hear them, but what are they really?
Rob Fetters, guitarist for the psychodots and The Bears, studio musician, guitar
player for 40-some years, please define a riff.
“Oh god, I hate doing that,” he says before searching for the proper words. “It’s a hook, a little snippet of music that is almost immediately addicting. Perhaps it’s like crack. You do it once, you want to do it again, and if you don’t hear it again you feel sad. I’ve never done crack but I’m told that’s what happens.”
Ken Haas, leader of the devilishly clever Polka Floyd Show and the Zimmerman Twins, sales representative for Reverend Guitars in Michigan, and long-time veteran of Toledo’s music scene, please define a riff.
He starts with this: “It’s a driving sort of single note,” but he stops in mid- sentence. “Oh jeez, it’s really hard to explain, like a single note barre chord, driving thing.”
Then Haas starts talking about what a riff is not, before finding his answer.
“It’s the guitar that supplies the melodic hook for the song. That would be my definition.”
Finally, let’s ask Nils Lofgren, guitarist for the E Street Band, long-time solo artist, and former member of Neil Young’s Crazy Horse. He is one of the most distinctive rock soloists ever, with a sound that ranges from spookily violent to heartbreaking beauty. Please, give us a definitive explanation.
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"It's all about a visceral, emotional reaction," he says in a phone interview while on break from the current Springsteen tour before talking awhile about how simplicity trumps complexity.
"It's about an emotional contact," he concludes.
So there you have it. Trying to define riffs, no matter how much music you've played, isn't easy. But to paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's famous definition of pornography - "I know it when I see it" - we know a good one when we hear it.
"When you're on the listening end it just doesn't matter, good is good," says Desi Serna, Toledo musician, guitar instructor, and author of several guitar instruction books, including Fretboard Theory.
"To [listeners] it's just, how does it flow into the ear. Is it an identifiable, followable hook that sounds good? That's all that really matters."
Blade readers are pretty opinionated about their riffs. We asked them to send in their favorites and got several hundred suggestions, ranging from predictable choices from artists like AC/DC, the Rolling Stones, and Eric Clapton, to some pretty far-out offerings like King Crimson's "Lark's Tongue In Aspic."
Karen Rieger's picks were "Bad to the Bone," by George Thorogood and the Destroyers," "Sweet Child O' Mine" from Guns N Roses, "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple, "You Shook Me All Night Long" by AC/DC, and her favorite, "Layla," Eric Clapton's epic Derek and the Dominoes jam that included Duane Allman sharing guitar duties.
Rieger, a 52-year-old Sylvania resident, didn't have any trouble at all explaining why she likes riff rock."It's just a great feeling to hear that kind of music. I just love it. To me what describes a good riff is when someone is moving their head to it or playing air guitar to it. You can't help it."
But there has to be a theoretical definition of a riff, something a bit more scientific, right? (And for the sake of argument, it is stipulated that we're talking about rock riffs on the guitar and no other instrument. Also, we're leaving out all the great jazz runs, country licks, funk riffs, and blues vamps, which would be a much tougher task.)
In his book Riffs: How to Create and Play Great Guitar Riffs (Backbeat Books, 176 pages), Rikky Rooksby says that the term originated in the 1920s as slang for a "short repeated phrase in jazz and similar music." He expands it a bit for rock as this:
"A riff is a short, repeated, memorable musical phrase, often pitched low on the guitar, which focuses much of the energy and excitement of a rock song."
Rooksby, the author of a number of music books, then breaks down dozens of riffs in his "Riff Gallery" and explains how they're played. If you're interested in things like intervals, semitones, and scales, you'll get somewhere with his book. If not, it's a fun skim, if for no other reason than the fascinating cataloging of songs he provides from groups as diverse as Whitesnake and Nirvana.
Rooksby pegs 1964 as "year zero" for the development of the rock riff, thanks to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks, The Animals, and Them. All were bands that were capable of raw, down-and-dirty rock songs that punctuated their emotions with quick, catchy guitar figures.
When Fetters, who now lives in Cincinnati, was growing up in Sylvania, he'd hole up in his room and play Who songs over and over until he got them right. For him "Happy Jack" and other Pete Townshend riffs were like a message from on high.
"It's spiritual and it's like an aspect of God that is violent and fire. That's Pete Townshend and it's cool," Fetters says. "The thing with Pete, he does it with an acoustic guitar, too. He doesn't need necessarily a big fat electric guitar to have that fire and that authority."
Fetters' point zeroes in on that most elusive element of the rock riff: the man or woman playing it. In the wrong hands, Kurt Cobain's work on "Smells Like Teen Spirit" could sound like a sloppy mess. But when Cobain played it, the song captured an element of the artist's humanity that gave the riff its spirit and made it identifiable.
Serna says that's why someone like Stevie Ray Vaughan can play Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Chile" and stamp it with his own identity while simultaneously paying homage to Hendrix and giving the song the same energy as the original.
"When players copy licks, they're never able to duplicate them exactly," he said. "Just like with the voice, everyone has their own unique touch and timing, and no matter how much you might try and emulate someone else, it just doesn't come out the same."
For example, look at "Satisfaction," one of Keith Richards' most identifiable riffs and one that is surprisingly easy to play. But no matter how hard you might try, it's never going to sound just like old Keith, and when you see him play it live - beaming with a big grin and playing it over and over - the riff seems to emanate from some otherworldly place.
Lofgren says that kind of simplicity combined with the personality of the player are what give a good riff its kick and staying power.
"One and two-note melodies weaving through some chords and having some visceral impact is music at its best," he says. "It's all been done so it's how you package it emotionally and the guitar is the perfect instrument for that."
| BIOS |
The Blade asked local guitar players Desi Serna and Joe Boes to show you how to play a few of our readers' favorite riffs. Serna played the key riffs in "Iron Man," "Foxy Lady," "Smoke On the Water" and "Enter Sandman." Boes demonstrated "Start Me Up," "Whole Lotta Love," and "Sunshine Of Your Love."
• Desi Serna has taught guitar and played gigs throughout Toledo for years. He is the author of the instructional book Fretboard Theory, and has produced four instructional DVDs that are available at his Web site Guitar Music Theory. His work also is featured on Youtube and he was recently the subject of a short item in Rolling Stone magazine praising his instructional videos.
• Joe Boes teaches guitar at Durdel's Music Center in Toledo and has plays throughout the area, both solo and with other musicians. His CD, "...and the rain makes the sun shine brighter" recorded under the moniker Mojoe Boes, is available at Durdel's and other local music stores. His Web site is www.mojoeboes.com. |
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If it's all been done, then how does anyone do something new? Or, put another way, is another generation churning out great riffs now? Because, let's face it, most of those in the popular canon are 30 or 40 years old.
Joe Boes, a Toledo musician who teaches at Durdel's Music Center, says the popularity of hip-hop and even grunge - which had heavy guitars but generally isn't considered riff rock - have changed the musical landscape. Jimi Hendrix, Clapton, Deep Purple, the Stones were all bands you heard on the radio, which made their music become more memorable, he said.
So while there are bands making cool new riffs, they're not part of the popular culture the way, say "Sunshine of Your Love" became after it was released in 1967. Boes said he has 8-year-old students who recognize the Cream song.
"I think that they are out there, but it's just that the prime '60s and '70s riff rock stuff was more popular, or at least that we think of it as popular," Boes says.
Velvet Revolver, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, and White Stripes are all contemporary bands that have made classic riff rock, he said. Boes singled out John Frusciante of the Chili Peppers as a great example of a modern guitarist who follows the traditions of his forebears.
"You can hear Hendrix in him and Hendrix had the blues, so that means [Frusciante] has a blues element, but it's mixed with funk and a crazy weird element."
The blues, or some variation, is the common denominator in most of the great rock riffs, Boes said. Guys like Jimmy Page and Keith Richards took the work of American blues greats like Albert King and Muddy Waters and infused them with something fresh, developing an endless lexicon of riffs.
He used a baking analogy to explain how a riff goes from ho-hum or derivative to something special.
"It's like a lot of people don't want to eat the raw materials of a cake, but they want to eat the cake," he said. "You mix the ingredients together and wow, that tastes good."
Which brings it down to the simple fact that what makes a great riff is ultimately in the ears of the beholder. For Rieger, it's something that makes her spontaneously play air guitar. For Lofgren, it's that visceral gut punch that makes him want more.
Fetters compared "Smoke on the Water" to "Sunshine of Your Love." One works for him, the other doesn't.
"•'Smoke on the Water actually never appealed to me. Ever. Only now in a funny comedic sense have I ever thought that was cool. I always thought, 'yuck,'•" he said.
"And yet I can hear something equally stupid like 'Sunshine of Your Love' and it just drills me and I think, 'That is one cool riff.'•"
Contact Rod Lockwood at: rlockwood@theblade.com
or 419-724-6159
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