Home Forums Progress Review Studying Riffs using GP6 Sections

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    • #22160
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      Sarah has a cool new streaming video site with metalriffs.com, I dunno how many of you have checked it out. The streaming lesson up there right now from Metal Riffology is a lesson about connecting riffs together in a way that sounds good.

      Anyway I happened to spend 5 hrs tonight ( 🙁 ) revisiting and transcribing the riff part of a song I am learning. It has riffy phrases that connect the chord progressions. It’s useful to try to understand the riffs in terms of repeating blocks. Just like Sarah’s Riffology explains. Also recently I have been jamming with some other guitarists and we are teaching each other the songs we know. I guess I could say, I’m doing most of the song teaching because one of the guitarists doesn’t know the names of the chords he’s playing, or the song forms, so, he can’t explain how his go. 🙁 I’ve developed kind of a terminology for explaining songs on the fly, like I’m starting to recognize riff-structure-things which act as turnarounds after a chord progression, or “part A” vs “part B”, which sections repeat so I can give them names, stuff like that. Then when we are playing together, I can call out those terms and have them follow along more quickly. I think I also remember songs a lot better if I break them down into these pieces that connect up. This was really a big problem for me when trying to learn songs in the past.

      So if I put this song I’m learning into GP6 like this, using GP6 sections, it starts to look like a form.

      Enough explaining, here’s the result:

      Halestorm-Freak-Like-Me-Intro-Turnaround-Riff-Std-Tuning

      To me that looks a whole lot more understandable than the typical tab format. It uses song section labels and alternate endings. Super easy to see what is played repeatedly and what changes. (Some of the newer metal method lesson exercises also use alternate endings.)

      For this same song, the typical online tab is like this (note alternate tuning):

      Halestorm-Freak-Like-Me-Intro-Turnaround-Riff-Songsterr

      A tab like that, to me, just does not have any structure, I find it really hard to follow, in terms of “knowing the song”. Sure I could play it 100x and get it down but would I really know “how does it go?”, I don’t think so. Which is exactly why the guitarist I am jamming with now, will say things like: “oh the chorus? uhhmmm.. I don’t know how it goes, let me play again from the beginning, that’s the only way I know how to explain it.” Unfortunately altho I make some cool song charts for myself for all the songs I play now, I’ve found it impossible to get the musicians i’ve been playing with to look at them or practice with them, so, I dont bother sharing them anymore, which is a bummer.

      Now listen to the song (these riffs are in the guitar intro).. see which style of tab makes more sense when trying to follow along by ear and by tab..


      Halestorm – Freak Like Me [Official Video] – YouTube

      So I think GP6 sections and alt endings are pretty cool to use in tab. Maybe someday the online tab sites will be able to structure tabs in different “views” like typical long form, or with sections and repeats, or etc.

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

      Attachments:
      1. Halestorm-Freak-Like-Me-Intro-Turnaround-Riff-Std-Tuning.jpg

      2. Halestorm-Freak-Like-Me-Intro-Turnaround-Riff-Songsterr.png

    • #22165
      MotleyCrue81
      Participant

      Thinking in chunks instead of notes or chords definitely makes things a lot easier. When I started out I’d pay attention to each bar maybe, learning songs was hard because of remembering. Just getting the pieces down and having chunks to work like you said made things super simple I figured out after s while.

      Bring hair metal back!

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