- 12 minutes ago
From Yes to Zep to Steely Dan to Pink Floyd, Jimmy Brown — Guitar World magazine's longtime senior music editor — plays and discusses some of the now-classic guitar riffs that changed his life.
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00:12Hey there, Jimmy Brown from Guitar World here, and today I would like to share with you some of
00:17the riffs that really changed my life and had a big impact on me when I was growing up in
00:23the
00:2370s as a teenager playing a guitar. I had six older siblings who turned around a lot of great
00:28music in the 60s and 70s, and the things I really gravitated towards, not so much riffs per se,
00:35I did learn a lot of single note riffs and stuff early on, but the stuff with really interesting
00:39chord changes. Anybody who knows me musically knows I'm all about playing interesting chord
00:45changes and soloing over interesting chord changes. So I'd like to start out with one of my favorites
00:50of all time, Led Zeppelin, Since I've Been Loving You. Slow blues, super dramatic, I mean what they
00:57did with the dynamics in the song is amazing, but most amazingly is what they did on the chorus or
01:04when it goes to the turnaround or whatever. So let me just play it for context a little bit of
01:08the
01:08intro and I'll get to the part I'm talking about.
01:27That's not the part I'm talking about, that's just like Jimmy Page soloing over the intro,
01:33over C minor, then it goes to F minor. John Paul Jones is playing the organ and the bass and
01:40bottoms on the drums and back to C minor, and then this part.
01:58And then...
02:05Yeah, that move right there, that is so unlike any other minor blues I've ever encountered, where it goes to
02:11the...
02:12So it goes to D7...
02:17Page is actually playing...
02:19Okay, let me back up a little bit. So...
02:27It's C minor over E flat, then G over D, Jones is playing D in the bass, and then C
02:36minor, E flat.
02:38Then we have the 2 chord, like a 2 dominant 7, but Jimmy's not playing the root.
02:45He could be going...
02:50I know why he didn't do that, because if he bends up...
02:56That totally clashes, right? It's a minor 9 interval over...
03:00Doesn't work with a major 7 chord, but he plays...
03:04He plays the 5th of the chord on the bottom there. That's so cool.
03:09And he's doing it like as if he had a G string bender, like on a Telecaster you can get
03:14a G bender, almost like a pedal steel effect, where you can pretend to do it like this.
03:25So he's bending up from C to D, and that works amazingly.
03:34Who would think that bending up to the flat 9 would work, but...
03:51That's so unlike any other minor blues.
03:54Typically, you go to the 5 chord...
04:00Or the 4 chord minor, all minor...
04:04Turn around...
04:10Or, say, like the thrills gone, B.B. King, B minor.
04:15But if it were in C minor...
04:17You go to C minor...
04:19And then F minor...
04:20The thrills gone, baby...
04:22And then it goes to Ab major 7...
04:26G sus to G...
04:29And that's more like a jazz blues, where you would...
04:37Like a Coltrane minor blues or something.
04:40So, um...
04:41Doing that 2 chord...
04:43It's kind of...
04:43Actually that...
04:46A flat 7...
04:47The flat 6 dominant 7 chord...
04:50Or you can do...
04:50The 2...
04:51And then...
04:53It's kind of like...
04:56Sort of...
04:57But, uh...
04:58Every time I hear it, it just gives me goosebumps.
05:00You know?
05:01And what Jimmy played in the beginning of that, when he did that...
05:09In the background, you got...
05:15Instead of going to F minor, they go...
05:22Make like a nice melodic bass line out of it.
05:24And then...
05:25C minor over E flat...
05:28C minor over E flat...
05:29G over D...
05:30And then the bass plays C minor...
05:32E flat...
05:35The lick he plays in the beginning is really cool too.
05:37It's worth checking out because he does this...
05:40Big 2-step over bend...
05:53Now Jimmy Page plays with 8s...
05:56These are 10s...
05:57You gotta fight for it a little more...
05:58But, um...
05:59I used to think it was...
06:02Nope, nope, he's bending up...
06:07Then you have a whole step pre-bend...
06:18That sounds like BB King, right?
06:19You know, doing those big over bends...
06:21And then...
06:29Beautiful stuff...
06:30Next up, while we're on Zeppelin...
06:32The Rain Song...
06:33I tell you, I love Jimmy Page...
06:35All the things about his blues rock playing and riff writing...
06:38He's the king of the riff...
06:40But one of the things I love most about Jimmy's work is...
06:43His acoustic stuff...
06:44And his use of open tunings...
06:47You know, he used Dadgad, famously, on White Summer...
06:49And then Black Mountainside and Cashmere, most famously...
06:52And, uh...
06:53C6 tuning on Bron Uroar and Friends...
06:56Which recorded in the same session, interestingly, on different albums...
07:00But, the one I love the most is the Rain Song tuning...
07:03Which is...
07:04I don't know what you'd call it...
07:06It's a D-G-C...
07:07G-C-D...
07:09And, uh...
07:10They did a whole step higher...
07:12Live...
07:12On the song we're in the same...
07:13Which was...
07:14Interesting...
07:14Because Robert Plant had to sing it...
07:15Up a whole step...
07:17But, what's really cool is that...
07:19Jimmy just...
07:20Took these little...
07:21Simple two-note shapes...
07:22And moved them around...
07:23Started out with this...
07:25This is a G-5...
07:27And then a G-major-7...
07:29So he's octave doubling the melody here...
07:32On his second and fourth strings...
07:37Where's that chord come from?
07:38That doesn't live in the key of G-major...
07:41It lives in the parallel key of G-minor...
07:44So...
07:46And you have these open droning strings...
07:48Open unisons...
07:53Ah...
07:55Sublime...
07:57And this is the best part...
08:04Oh, so beautiful...
08:05G-major...
08:07G-sus-2...
08:08G-sus-4...
08:10G-major...
08:10G-6...
08:13Wow...
08:14E-flat...
08:16Major...
08:17Uh...
08:18E-flat...
08:19Flat-6...
08:20Over G...
08:21Or...
08:21Yeah...
08:22And then...
08:23The money chord...
08:25Ah...
08:26G-9...
08:27But it looks like an A-shape, right?
08:31C-sus-3...
08:31And then G-minor-9...
08:36And then C-sus...
08:38C-sus-4...
08:39C...
08:41C-sus-4...
08:41I-flat...
08:43C-sus-4...
08:44C-sus-4...
09:01C-sus-4...
09:11jazzy that really intrigued me and got me exploring more music that had that
09:16kind of harmonic depth and richness and ultimately made me want to go to music
09:20school and study and learn more about harmony.
09:24Again, the open strings in there, that's what makes it great.
09:27It's the timbre, the sparkly timbre.
09:36He does this line cliche thing where he walks up, go to the 5 to the flat 6, major 6,
09:50what's
09:56that?
09:56That's a dominant 7, 13 chord.
09:58I'm like, what?
10:05Major 7s and minor 7s.
10:09B minor 11, I think, and then a big majestic E9 sus4.
10:14But it's the timbre of all those open strings that combine with the sophisticated harmony
10:19that really got me thinking.
10:21And later in the song, he goes...
10:47Yeah, it's still one of the most beautiful songs, I think, ever written.
10:50Legend has it that was kind of done on a dare.
10:53George Harrison was hanging out with Jimmy Page one day and said, you guys need a song
10:57like something in your repertoire.
10:59So Page is like, hmm, okay.
11:01So he took the first two chords.
11:08And then it's completely different from that point on, but good stuff.
11:14Another one that inspired me early on from the early 70s is classic song Dream On by Aerosmith
11:20from their first album.
11:22Now, Steven Tyler wrote this on the piano, which is amazing because it's so beautiful
11:27and sophisticated.
11:27It's like these Chopin-esque type chord changes.
11:31And I've never really heard other stuff that he's done on the piano.
11:36And still to this day, these chord changes, it melts my heart in a good way.
11:41Joe Perry doubled the chords on the guitar.
11:43I guess Tyler showed him the chords and said, here, just play this.
11:46And then play this.
11:47And then maybe didn't even know what chords are called.
11:53It's F minor, F minor, C minor, and then D minor, D minor 7 flat 5, D flat major 7
12:09flat 5.
12:09Let me just play it through.
12:49What I like to do, I've been doing this for years, is I put a capo at the first fret.
12:53You may have noticed that.
12:55And I just think E minor, get to use some of these open strings.
12:59So check this out.
13:24And then I'm using my open fist string.
13:29And then.
13:39See how that works out?
13:40The open strings make it really nice.
13:41So I'm kind of thinking E minor.
13:43You know, when you play with a capo, when you're within the first five frets, you think
13:47as if this didn't exist, and that was a nut, and this was the first fret, second fret.
13:51But as soon as you get past five frets away from the capo, you revert back to thinking
13:56in terms of the absolute concert pitch.
13:57But let's stick with F minor.
13:59So F minor, and then C minor over F, which is really kind of like an F minor 9 sound.
14:06And then it's kind of like an F minor 6 sound.
14:10And then, wow, D flat, major 7, flat 5 over F.
14:16And these cluster voicings.
14:19It's so pretty.
14:45Perry would do that playing the song live.
14:47And one thing I do a little different than what Joe Perry plays.
14:49He strums with the pick.
14:51I do picking fingers.
14:53I use hybrid picking because it sounds more like the piano part.
14:56More of that pianistic type of note attack.
14:58And another thing that I put my own stamp on this song is in the interlude part, where it goes.
15:08Oh, I go.
15:11I do like a minor drop.
15:17Ah, that blissful A9 chord.
15:22It's actually B flat 9 in this key.
15:24So you have.
15:35And then this works out great with the capo.
15:40And then.
16:14That's how I like to play it.
16:15Still to this day, it's one of my favorite songs.
16:18Another song that really changed my life early on was
16:20Long Distance Runaround by Yes.
16:22Actually, the whole album, the Fragile album with Roundabout and Heart of the Sunrise,
16:26all these great songs.
16:27And the Yes album before that and Close to the Edge blew my mind.
16:31Steve Howe, my man, Steve Howe.
16:33I had the great honor and privilege of interviewing Steve a couple times for Guitar World over the years.
16:37But long before that, I, as a young guitar player,
16:41I heard the song and I'm like, what the heck is he doing?
16:44Playing these arpeggios across strings.
16:47I mean, I was just thinking like pentatonic at the time,
16:49you know, like power chords, pentatonic.
16:51So let me play a little bit of Long Distance Runaround for you.
16:54And I'll see you next time.
17:06Bye.
17:09Bye.
17:13Bye.
17:15Bye.
17:18Bye.
17:20Bye.
17:21Bye.
17:21Bye.
17:36Bye.
17:40Bye.
17:41Bye.
17:43Bye.
17:46Bye.
17:47Yeah, that part's great, too.
17:49Bye.
17:51Bye.
17:51Bye.
17:52Bye.
17:55Bye.
17:57Bye.
18:02Bye.
18:04context, that would be that. Or it could be C9, right? And then just like a C-sus to C.
18:15So the underlying feeling is kind of like, you know, going
18:24like G minor over C to C. And it's really hard to pick, you know? I guess you call it
18:32cross-picking
18:32where there's only one note per string and you have to change strings every stroke.
18:39Couple of pull-offs, you know, Steve is very tasteful with combining a little
18:43legato with his picking stuff. And then finger slides.
18:54This is the hardest part. You have a similar move here.
18:59And then.
19:03That taught me, wow, geez, you can take arpeggios and do things like that, like.
19:13It got me into learning about chord scales, you know, harmonizing
19:17arpeggios and scales up and down strings and maybe want to study that. But it was so intriguing.
19:38So elegant, right? It's like classical.
19:43Yeah, great stuff. Later on, I started getting into Steeway Dan. Some buddies of mine turned me on to
19:48this wonderful music written by Donald Fagan and Walter Becker. I mean, what they did, they took
19:54jazz harmony and made it accessible in a pop way, pop songs. The only other person who I've ever
20:01really known to appreciate to do that is Stevie Wonder, right? Taking these great chords and making
20:06top 10 radio hits out of them. So the song Josie is one of my favorites. And that features Becker
20:14on
20:14guitar and guitar and that. And also Larry Carlton plays a great solo. But that intro, that hauntingly
20:19beautiful intro, that's Dean Parks playing that. And it's these interesting intervals.
20:47And then the chords that come out to that are really cool.
20:49We're going to rip up and blow the stars. Josie comes home to stay. We're going to pop in the
20:56stream. Tape on the beach and make it. Hold her on and turn to the girls and say, wait,
21:05wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. When Josie comes home.
21:10And the chorus. Josie comes home so good. She's a pride of the neighborhood.
21:24She plays like a woman with her eyes on fire.
21:28Yeah, so much going on there, right? But that beginning part, you have a minor 7-inchable.
21:35I didn't know what that was until I learned the song. And then it's parallel fifths.
21:45Sounds very medieval, right? Or very ancient. You know, like...
21:52Hail Caesar! Right? Parallel fifths. Kind of like a primitive modern sound. And it's hybrid
22:00picked too. So that got me into hybrid picking. I assume that you had to play everything with a pick
22:04before that.
22:13Then this really gets really interesting. Well, it's already interesting, but more interesting.
22:21Wow. You have a minor 2nd there. A little cluster. And then these chords. What is that? That's a...
22:34But then you have this. And then this. That's... That's F sharp 7 sharp 9 sharp 5.
22:44And then a G major 7 note 3. You can think of that as D over G. Like a so
22:50-called slash chord.
22:51And then... A flat major 7 6. Really intriguing stuff. It really made my ears perk up.
22:57And my brain wants to learn more about those kind of interesting chord changes. And then in the verse.
23:06This is an E minor 7. And it goes...
23:11Those are major 7s without the third. Again, it's like... You think of it as A over D.
23:17Or D major 9 note 3.
23:20T major 9 note 3.
23:22G major 9 note 3. Or like a D chord over G. I'm making this big stretch.
23:28C over F. Or F major 9 note 3.
23:32And... You know, those chords are so cool. They're like fusion-y chords.
23:37But the way Stewie Dan made these chords work in very catchy pop songs is absolutely brilliant.
23:43And it had a huge impact on me. Another song that changed my life is
23:47Dogs by Pink Floyd. That epic 20 plus minute piece from their 1977 album Animals.
23:54And it's a masterpiece, I think, of a songwriting composition.
23:59David Gilmour and Roger Waters at their finest collaborating with Rick Wright and Nick Mason.
24:05That opening chord sequence is so intriguing to me.
24:09Now, they were tuned down... Gilmour tuned his guitar down a whole step.
24:13So he was in D standard. I'm just in E standard here. I'm just going to play it for you.
24:17It's E minor 9.
24:20Which is really a nice voicing. I mean, you could play it like that. It's more of the jazz way
24:24to play it.
24:25But he's playing...
24:42And it just loops around for the verses. That is so cool.
24:47E minor 9. You know, I mentioned earlier that the Rain song.
24:50I'm like, oh, what's this 9th chord? Dominant 9 and then minor 9. Wow! I want more of that.
24:56I want to learn more songs that have that. That's what really does it for me.
25:00It's chord changes. Interesting chord changes and voicings.
25:03So then it goes to that. That's like the Stewie Dan chord, right?
25:12So now we're going E minor 9 to F major 9 note 3. Or think of it as C over
25:17F.
25:24And this is pretty cool. This looks like out of context. You think, okay, what is that? Is that like
25:28a
25:29F sharp 7 sus 4? Because this would be F sharp 7. Right?
25:35But when the bass comes in, it actually plays B.
25:42So that makes it, I guess, B sus 2 sus 4. You can call it B sus 2 4.
25:48And then this chord, same shape.
25:52That's like a Lydian sound. By itself, without the bass note, you're thinking, okay, what is it?
25:58F major 7 sus 4, which is something you never hear. Like...
26:03Usually you hear a...
26:06On a major 7, you hear a sharp 4 or a sharp 11.
26:10So, but when the bass goes from B, I'm going to try to get that bass under.
26:22Now, in full context, you have B flat, root 5th octave, right? 9 sharp 11. Or it's like a...
26:33C7 over B flat. Really intriguing sound, you know? And with the open strings, that adds the timbre,
26:39the shimmer. So...
26:44By the way, you could fret. Do the shared fingertip fretting technique, where you hold down two
26:49strings with the tip of the finger. It's not like you're barring.
26:57And then if you want to do the F, get the thumb over there.
27:03I mean, Gilmore didn't do that. I'm just doing it now, you know? And then this...
27:14I guess you could trade fingers.
27:16There's no easy way to do it. Or let the bass player do it. But, um, boy, what a spooky,
27:23hauntingly beautiful chord progression. You know, that taught me that you don't have to play by the
27:28rules all the time. You know, you learn your diatonic chords and the key of C, G, major scales,
27:35and your minor scales, harmonic minor scales, and melodic minor, and then break the rules.
27:40Like, learn all these guidelines, and then just do whatever the hell you want.
27:43You know, you want to move chromatically and have a common tone.
27:49If it sounds good, it is good.
27:51So those are a few of the riffs that really changed my life as it gets hard player in my
27:56formative years. As a late teenager, early 20s, totally got me thinking about new ways to look
28:03at music other than just your standard 1-4-5 progressions and whatnot. And I hope you've enjoyed
28:09it. My name is Jimmy Brown. See you around.
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