Use This Trick To Turn CHORD PROGRESSIONS Into RIFFS
Most guitar riffs that have ever been written can be generally placed into two categories:
Riffs that are based around chords,
And riffs that are not.
Riffs that are based around chords are usually harder to make sound "right". Unless you know what you're doing they sound stagnant and kind of boring.
So how do you make them sound good?
The secret, that almost every pro guitarist uses, is "voice leading."
This is where we think of every individual note in the chord progression as its own melody. Then we choose voicing for these chords that make these melodies sound as good as possible. (it makes more sense when you see it done...)
Most people who have studied voice leading have applied it to writing chords, not writing riffs... But playing your chord progressions as riffs like this will instantly make them sound more interesting...
... and it isn’t even that hard to do!
So if you want to learn how to use voice leading in your writing, watch the video below and I’ll show you how.
It goes without saying that a better understanding of chords across your whole fretboard will be incredibly useful for doing this. If you want to get better with chords and harmony on the guitar, check out my Complete Chord Mastery guitar course
Video Transcription
Hello internet, so nice to see you! We all like great riffs, we started playing guitar because we've heard our guitar heroes play great riffs that sounded big on the guitar and now if you're playing guitar, you're probably thinking, how do I write a great riff?
How do I create something that sounds good? How do we create a rhythm part that sounds big and rocks? Well, I'm here to tell you that there is a secret weapon that can help you and I'm going to show it to you in a few different riffs plus on how to use it on your own riffs.
This secret weapon has a strange name, it's called voice leading and you may have heard of that, but probably have never seen it in the context of a guitar riff So a student asked me how to write great riffs and that's my answer.
Okay, voice leading is this idea that when I play two chords I try to take every note of the first chord, every note of the second chord and match them so that every note moves the least amount to the next note So if I'm playing a C major chord here, like C, E and G and then I have to play a G chord, I don't play C here and then G here Why?
Because it doesn't sound good It's harder because it's the same shape, it's easier in this sense but it's far away so it's harder and it doesn't sound good It's like quite lame Instead I try to find a G position close by so I'm thinking this Same thing playing C here and G here The notes are close by, it does feel better I mean, it always depends what you want to say It always depends what's the point of the piece.
But if you don't have any reason to go away, voice leading is kind of the default, okay? Most of the rules of music theory are to be understood as rules again, okay? As the default we use unless we have good reason to do otherwise.
That's the idea. It just sounds better, okay? So, where it is used? Well, where it is not used, I mean, it's um... That's voice leading. What did you think it was? Okay, I mean, the default I think is voice leading.
Bach, Beethoven, people with long white hair, okay? Old geezers, okay? Now, Hendrix, okay? Rolling stones, okay? Now, we'll use voice leading, okay? If, like, left hand, we'll use voice leading. I mean...
Maybe they don't call it this way. I mean, if you go to Eric Clapton and say, so you use voice leading, I'm not sure if Clapton will say yes, say and get out of here. Okay, but they are using this idea.
They play the chord close by, okay? This happens everywhere when you hear a funky rhythm, for instance. Okay, because in the funky. Okay. Right, they're all close by, not these, these, these, these. They're all close by, and they're not here, then jumping here, then jumping here, then jumping here.
So it's more, find all chords in a progression that are grouped closer and closer. So first you decide the progression. Yes. First you decide the progression. Then you find the positions that are close on the guitar and they can always find it.
Okay, you can always find position where the chords, whatever chords you have are close on the guitar, okay? By the way, closing the guitar, or closing theories, exactly the same damn thing, okay? Because if you write down the notes and you match them for distance, and then you transpose a thing directly on guitar, you still find that, okay?
But I mean, if you know the patterns on the guitar, just find the closest pattern. That is on the same string and in the same area. Sometimes you have two choices, okay? So if I'm going from C to D minor and I'm here, I could go higher or lower.
The higher it's closer, but the lower sounds kind of better because it's not the same position. I mean, it is a root on top and a root on top on both, but this is root on top for the C and fifth on top for the D minor.
So sometimes, especially for the chord that are close by in the key, it's better if you use the other position, essentially. I mean, in classical music, they will always use the other position. In modern music, after you, okay?
Because every time, Everything works. You just choose. You just choose. Okay. It could also be like, in that moment I want the music to go higher, so you pick the higher position. It could be simple as that.
It's not that, this is not kind of a brainy decision. What do you feel like going higher or going lower? Play that. Simply simple as that. It just seems too simple, but it is even more simple than it is even more simple.
But I try to make it more simple. The thing is that it's... That's the basics of voice leading. Now, if you open a music theory book and read about voice leading, you're going to find a bunch of other rules, because they have a slightly different case used in mind.
They are thinking, okay, typically they remind a piece with four voices. They have reason for thinking in four voices, because lots of ensembles of instruments like a string quartet, or... or a brass section.
They're typically written in this idea with three voices on top and one bass and four voices. Again, not always, but that is a very common case. So they want to learn to arrange for that situation. Of course, they should do also the three voices, which some users do and some don't.
They should do the two voices, etc., etc. But the most common case when you arrange something for real instrument in an orchestra is that you need to have a four -voice situation in mind with three voices on top, one bass.
Because also classical music has a very specific sound, so there are some sounds they want to avoid because they're not in style. So then you have to study all the tricks to avoid those sounds that are just sound in style, essentially.
We don't care about that. Unless we do, if you tell me I want to arrange for a string quartet, sure, let's sit down, let's do that. Then there are these additional tricks. I don't want to call them rules because the rule tells you what you should not do, but it doesn't tell you how.
So I like to think about if you don't like that sound, there is this trick to avoid that. That's kind of a more constructive way of approaching the whole thing. So in that case, we can get down to all these.
But for three voices, which is a typical triad case on the guitar, considering that you already have a bass player covering the bass, so you don't have to worry about that. It is this simple. It just boils down to pick the closest chord.
And use a good ear and your judgment, essentially, to the side if you like it or not. And if you don't, pick another choice or jump. And if you're playing close by, the voice leading doesn't sound good to you in that moment, jump somewhere else.
And then just play in that grouping. Yes. Okay. So you could play the same chord progression, whatever it is, I don't know, G, D, E minor, C. Yeah, but you can also play G, D, then E minor, C. C, but you can also play G, D, then E minor, C, but you can also play G, D, E minor, not E minor, C, or G, D, E minor, C, or whatever.
And they all have different... And it's the same chord progression, and if the song keeps repeating the chord progression, this will always work, but it feels like they're going higher, so the intensity is growing, okay, or I can go lower, and that's decreasing, or I can play the verse here, and the chorus here, and just jump, makes sense.
It does, yes. So whenever I have a transition, like a drum fill into the chorus, then I typically have the option to jump. At this point, it will make sense, because the next section is different, and so I can just jump somewhere else, like higher, typically, for the chorus, to give a different feeling to the song, okay?
But inside the chorus, maybe I follow the voice leading, okay? I understand now. That's the thing. That's the thing. It's really, people really make it something very big. What you want to do is to get used to find those chords in real time and play them in real time.
And that's it. That's why I signed up for Complete Chord Mastery. And it was a good idea. Very good. Yeah, that's all I need. That's it. That's it. Simple as that. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Don't worry.
You know this stuff. You got it.