Led Zeppelin at a concert in Chicago, Illinois by Jim Summaria, licensed under (CC BY-SA 3.0)
When I first started teaching guitar, I quickly realised that if you try to teach students a lot of chord based strumming songs, (which seems like the typical way to teach new students) they would find it difficult and get frustrated. I quickly realised a great way to motivate the student was to teach them riffs – particularly easy, classic riffs.
Reading strumming patterns for guitar can be a bit daunting at first. Once you get the hang of it, you will be fine. Stick with it as it is a very useful skill to learn. When reading a strum pattern use your eyes to guide you but make sure you follow your ears. After all music is meant to be listened to so it must sound right.
One of the things that stand out in modern metal is a guitarist’s ability to seamlessly combine elements of rhythm and lead guitar to produce rich sounding, rhythmically strong riffs that wow the audience yet keep a strong groove. This takes time to master. Players such as Dan and Pin from SikTh do this brilliantly and pretty much reinvented the wheel when it comes to complex, yet catchy guitar parts.
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Foo Fighters – Rock am Ring 2018 by Andreas Lawen, Fotandi, licensed under (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters certainly knows a thing or two about writing a big hit rock song. Over the past two decades he has penned some of the best rock songs to hit the airwaves. All the way from ‘This is a call’through to ‘Everlong’ and more recently ‘Rope’, Foo Fighters back catalogue is a masterclass in songwriting. If you want to learn the bare bones of how to write a hit rock song, read on.