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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...
08:42C-sus-4...
08:52That really perked my ears up...
08:54learning about ninth chords got me thinking early on that, wow, there's more to harmony
08:59than just major and minor chords and cowboy chords, dominant sevens, bluesy stuff.
09:05What is this?
09:06That was my first encounter with a ninth chord and then a minor nine chord that's real jazzy
09:11that really intrigued me and got me exploring more music that had that kind of harmonic
09:17depth and richness and ultimately made me want to go to music school and study and learn
09:21more about harmony.
09:24Again, the open strings in there, that's what makes it great.
09:28It's the timbre, the sparkly timbre.
09:36He does this line cliché thing where he walks up.
09:43Go to the five to the flat six.
09:49Major six.
09:55What's that?
09:56That's a dominant seven, 13 chord.
09:58I'm like, what?
10:05Major sevens and minor sevens.
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, you know.
10:22And 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.
10:56He said, you guys need a song like something in your repertoire.
10:59So Page is like, hmm, okay.
11:01So he took the first two chords.
11:05Something in the way she moves.
11:08Facts me like no other.
11:10I love it.
11:11Then it's completely different from that point on.
11:12But good stuff.
11:13Another one that inspired me early on from the early 70s is the classic song Dream On by
11:20Aerosmith from their first album.
11:22Now, Steven Tyler wrote this on the piano, which is amazing because it's so beautiful and 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.
11:35And still to this day, these chord changes, it melts my heart in a good way.
11:41Anyway, Joe Perry doubled the chords on the guitar.
11:43I guess Tyler showed him the chords and said, here, just play this and then play this and
11:48then 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.
12:11Let 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.
13:39See how that works out?
13:40The open strings make it really nice.
13:41So I'm kind of thinking E minor, you know, when you play with a capo, when you're within
13:45the first five frets, you think as if this didn't exist and that was a nut and this was
13:50the 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.
14:19So pretty.
14:45Perry would do that playing the song live.
14:47And one thing I do a little different than what Joe Perry plays, he strums with the pick.
14:51I do pick and fingers.
14:53I use hybrid picking because it sounds more like the piano part, more of that pianistic
14:57type of note attack.
14:58And another thing that I put my own stamp on the song is in the interlude part where it
15:03goes.
15:09Well, I go.
15:11I do like a minor drop.
15:17Ah, it's that blissful A9 chord.
15:22It's actually B flat 9 in this case.
15:24So you have.
15:35And then this works out great with the capo.
15:39And then this works out great with the capo.
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 Long Distance Runaround by Yes.
16:22Actually, the whole album, the Fragile album with Roundabout and Heart of the Sunrise, all
16:26these 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 of times for Guitar World over
16:37the years.
16:37But long before that, as a young guitar player, I heard the song and I'm like, what the heck
16:43is he doing?
16:44Playing these arpeggios across strings.
16:47I mean, I was just thinking like pentatonic at the time, you know, like power chords pentatonic.
16:50So, let me play a little bit of Long Distance Runaround for you.
16:54Long Distance Runaround for you.
17:47Yeah, that part's great too.
17:49But, uh, man, so amazing.
17:52Rick Wickman's playing a harmony line on keyboard and between the two of them, they're kind
17:56of outlining it like an E minor 7 flat 5.
18:03Out of context, that would be that.
18:05Or it could be C9, right?
18:09And 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.
18:29And it's really hard to pick, you know, I guess you call it a cross-picking where there's only
18:33one note per string and you have to change strings every stroke.
18:39A couple of pull-offs, you know, Steve is very tasteful with combining a little bit of legato with his
18:43picking stuff.
18:49And then finger slides.
18:54This is the hardest part.
18:56You have a similar move here.
19:00And 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 arpeggios and scales up and down strings, and maybe
19:20want to study that.
19:21But it was so intriguing.
19:38So elegant, right?
19:39It's like classical.
19:43Yeah, great stuff.
19:44Later on, I started getting into Steely Dan, so my buddies of mine turned me on to this wonderful music
19:49written by
19:50Donald Fagan and Walter Becker.
19:52I mean, what they did, they took jazz harmony and made it accessible in a pop way, pop songs.
19:59The only other person who I've ever really known to appreciate to do that is Stevie Wonder, right?
20:04Taking these great chords and making top 10 radio hits out of them.
20:08So the song Josie is one of my favorites.
20:12And that features Becker on guitar and that, and also Larry Carlton plays a great solo.
20:17But that intro, that hauntingly beautiful intro, that's Dean Parks playing that.
20:22And it's these interesting intervals.
20:47And then the chords that come out to that are really cool.
20:49And then the chords that come out to that are really cool.
21:10And the chords.
21:11And the chords.
21:12And the chords.
21:16And the chords.
21:28Yeah, so much going on there, right?
21:30But that beginning part, you have a minor 7-inchable.
21:35I didn't know what that was until I learned the song.
21:38And then it's parallel fifths.
21:45Sounds very medieval, right?
21:47Or very ancient.
21:49You know, like.
21:52Hail Caesar!
21:54Right?
21:55Parallel fifths.
21:56Kind of like a primitive, modern sound.
22:00And it's hybrid picked, too.
22:01So that got me into hybrid picking.
22:03I assumed that you had to play everything with a pick before that.
22:12And then it gets really interesting.
22:15Well, it's already interesting, but more interesting.
22:20Wow.
22:22You have a minor 2nd there.
22:24A little cluster.
22:26And then these chords.
22:28What is that?
22:29It's an F major 7 without the 3rd.
22:32That would be a regular, a tame F major 7.
22:34But then you have this.
22:36And then this.
22:38That.
22:39That's F sharp 7, sharp 9, sharp 5.
22:44And then a G major 7, note 3.
22:47You think that as D over G.
22:49Like a so-called slash chord.
22:51And then A flat major 7, 6.
22:55Really intriguing stuff.
22:56It really made my ears perk up.
22:58And my brain want to learn more about those kind of interesting chord changes.
23:02And then in the verse.
23:06This is an E minor 7.
23:07And it goes.
23:11Those are major 7s without the 3rd.
23:14Again, 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.
23:24Or like a D chord over G.
23:26I'm making this big stretch.
23:28C over F.
23:29Or F major 9, note 3.
23:33And those chords are so cool.
23:35They're like fusion-y chords.
23:37But the way Steeway Dan made these chords work in very catchy pop songs is absolutely brilliant.
23:43And it had a huge impact on me.
23:45Another song that changed my life is Dogs by Pink Floyd.
23:49That 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.
24:14I'm just in E standard here.
24:16I'm just going to play it for you.
24:17It's E minor 9.
24:20Which is really a nice voicing.
24:22I mean, you could play like that.
24:24It's more of the jazz way to play it.
24:25But he's playing.
24:42And it just loops around for the verses.
24:45That is so cool.
24:47E minor 9.
24:48You know, I mentioned earlier that the Rain song.
24:50I'm like, oh, what's this 9th chord?
24:52Dominant 9 and then minor 9.
24:54Wow.
24:55I want more of that.
24:56I want to learn more songs that have that.
24:59That's what really does it for me.
25:00It's chord changes.
25:01Interesting chord changes and voicings.
25:03So then it goes to that.
25:05That's like the Steely Dan chord, right?
25:12So now we're going E minor 9 to F major 9, note 3.
25:16Or think of it as C over F.
25:24And this is pretty cool.
25:26This looks like out of context.
25:27You think, okay, what is that?
25:28Is that like a F sharp 7 sus 4?
25:31Because 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.
25:45You can call it B sus 2 4.
25:48And then this chord, same shape.
25:52That's like a Lydian sound.
25:53By itself, without the bass note, you're thinking, okay, what is it?
25:58F major 7 sus 4, which is something you never hear.
26:01Like, usually you hear a, on 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?
26:289, sharp 11.
26:30Or it's like a C7 over B flat.
26:35Really intriguing sound, you know?
26:37And with the open strings, that adds to the timbre, the shimmer.
26:40So.
26:44By the way, you could fret.
26:46Do the shared fingertip fretting technique, where you hold down two strings with the tip
26:50of the finger.
26:51It'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.
27:04I'm just doing it now, you know?
27:06And then this.
27:14I guess you could trade fingers.
27:16There's no easy way to do it.
27:19Or let the bass player do it.
27:20But, boy, what a spooky, hauntingly beautiful chord progression.
27:25You know, that taught me that you don't have to play by the rules all the time.
27:29You know, you learn your diatonic chords in the key of C, G, all the major scales, and
27:35your minor scales, your 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 a guitar player in my formative
27:56years as a late teenager, early 20s.
28:00Totally got me thinking about new ways to look at music other than just your standard
28:05one, four, five progressions and whatnot.
28:07And I hope you've enjoyed it.
28:09My name is Jimmy Brown.
28:10See you around.
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