Playing Rock Guitar Lessons

Here is a set of tab riffs to test a clean or acoustic guitar sound. It intended to be played on an electric guitar. You often need a quieter sound when playing rock guitar.

Play these tablature riffs with no overdrive or distortion applied. No effects are neccessary. You can put the lead for your guitar to the high impedance input of you ramp. Or if you choose to use pedals change to the low impedance input of your guitar amp.

Adjust the volume knobs on the guitar and amp to a lower volume setting to get the right sound. Keep the gain on your amp down at lower at 3 or 4. It should sound like an acoustic guitar or a quiet electric guitar. You can pick the notes singly or gently strum the chords for an acoustic guitar lesson.

Use the guitar selector switch to select the neck pickup. The neck pickup is not as sharp as the bridge pickup and will give the right blended, bassy, muffled sound for a clean rhythm guitar sound especially for the strumming and a bassier sound. But do try the bridge pickup for a brighter sound, especially for the picking riff. If adding any effects use low gentle settings and non-distortion effects (switch the lead back to the low impedance input when using pedals).

Pick the first part of the riff and then strum the second half. These two riffs are basically the same, both parts are played with a sliding three fingered powerchord and an open E string and the same chord progression.

For the first part, pick each single string once, going up and down the strings. Use the time spent picking the open E or 6th string to slide to the next position. Try the riff with different pickups to see which one gives the best sound for you.

Clean Picking Acoustic Guitar Rock Soundcheck

Put the pickup selector switch back to the neck or neck and middle pickup. With the bridge pickup it can sound a bit sharp and jarring.

For this one strum the top four strings together. The open E string acts a drone note. Strum down, up, down, pause and slide to the next powerchord position and strum down again. Use the down, up, down, down pattern for each bar. Slide back and repeat.

Clean Acoustic Guitar Strumming Rock Soundcheck

Hope this has helped with getting your clean acoustic style sound right. Remember if you are using multi-effect pedals keep one patch aside for your clean sound.

As I said, the first distorted sound will be your main sound for playing rock guitar. As you learn to play rock guitar
you will also need the lead guitar and clean sound at times so have a go at these now (see the other soundcheck post for rhythm and lead guitar soundcheck tips).

You can also have a read of the two part series on getting the right rock sound below (Getting the right sound and getting the right effect).

So next thing is to improve your playing rock guitar.