If you’ve got another intrument handling the bassline, you might be able to try this: Take one note from your first chord, one from your second chord etc, and find an interesting way of joining them together.

For example, take the chords E, Asus4 and A. You could choose the B note from the E chord, the D note from the Asus4 chord and the C# note from the A chord. What have you got? All the ingredients of the riff to Satisfaction by the Stones

Here’s a video that should make that a little clearer.

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One of the people who emailed in reply was Jeff Charreaux of the band Ultraviolet Eye. I took the opportunity to interview Jeff about his songwriting:

Tom: How did your songwriting career begin?

Jeff: As a teenager, when the main songwriter of my first punk band didn’t show up to a recording session for a compilation that was going to have the Dead Kennedys on it, we learned and recorded one of my songs.

Download Ultraviolet Eye – Before Sunrise

Tom: Your latest project is an album of Coming of Age tunes inspired by Ethan Hawk movies. How did you come up with that idea?

Jeff: In an art class, we explored brand identities of the things people use to decorate their personal environments—books, paintings, lighting, scents, background music and t.v. We studied the work of New York artist Jennifer Dalton and the Pitchfork semantics project: www.pitchformula.com We had to compile inventories of all our friends’ environmental ‘’ branding ‘’ products. The hard part of the assignment was finding some metonymy–what was a common thread? Ethan Hawke movies seemed to be on in the background more than any other thing that I cataloged. The theme in all of them seemed to be: don’t give in; don’t sell out; don’t compromise.

Tom: Personally, I think Coming of Age is one of the best concepts for an album I’ve heard in a long time. How has your songwriting reflected this concept, both lyrically and musically?

Jeff: I had to go back and watch the movies that had been in the background and take notes on how they expressed the concept of coming of age and holding onto your ideals. Sometimes the titles worked to inspire lyrics for the chorus (Gattaca, Before Sunrise). Sometimes they didn’t (Hamlet, Great Expectations). To get contrast between the verses and choruses, I took the most basic approach. On the choruses, I used less words, longer notes at a higher pitch than on the verses. Also, to have a sincere–instead of ironic or kitschy resonance–I started with the I IV and V chords in the chorus for nearly all of them. I tend to shy away from that because it’s hard to not sound vanilla or generic with such obvious chords. I used the pentatonic scale in the choruses to add some color.

Download Ultraviolet Eye – To Be or Not To Be

Tom: Every songwriter needs some music theory. How do you use your knowledge of rhythm and harmony in your songwriting? Is it in the back of your mind, or are you conscious of the theory behind your songwriting?

Jeff: Music theory is often in the front of my mind and can be a problem. Also, my favorite music is somewhat droning or repetitive like, electronic, Interpol, Eno, etc. Once my classical guitar teacher showed me how to play ‘’ How Soon Is Now ‘’, he said it sounded like a low-energy David Bowie. Anyway, after writing many angry punk rock songs, I had to work on finding out how to put contrast and interest into my chord progressions and melodies. I would get inspired mentally by an idea and lyrical possibilities, then try to communicate using word logic rather than emotions. Maybe that comes from being sent to Catholic school.

Tom: I’m currently writing a series of articles on the question ‘what makes a good riff?’ How would you answer that question?

Jeff: A good riff gets stuck in your head and makes people want to play it–even if you don’t play guitar at all! Like ‘ Smoke on the Water ‘, ‘ Iron Man ‘ or ‘ Enter Sandman ’. As simple as a nursery rhyme, but not in a major scale. Anyone with young nephews can attest to this!

You can find out more about Ultrviolet Eye at: www.lowartmusic.com

You can find them on CDbaby here: http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/UltravioletEye1

I wish I could teach you that, but the fact is I can’t. Writing a good riff requires inspiration, coming up with something musically unique. That can’t be taught. But I can teach you the characteristics of a good riff so that when you do have a good idea, you can recognise it.

Simplicity

One of the basic important characteritics of a good riff is that it is simple and short.  Most good riffs are two or four bars long and don’t use many notes.

Interesting Rhythm

The best riffs have some sort of interesting rhythm. What counts as interesting? That’s a very difficult, but a good place to start is by adding a little syncopation. A few off beat notes can go a long way to making your riff engaging, whether it’s part of a well known clave rhythm or simply having half your notes off the beat, as in the ‘la-la-la’ hook from this song.

Marking out the root notes.

A good riff might take the root notes of your chord progresiion, maybe add a passing note or two, and use an interesting rhythm to mark out the chord progression.
Enter Sandman by Metallica is an obvious example – The chords are Em and Am, so the riff uses the notes E and A, with a Bb in the middle as a passing note. Lots of blues riffs also follow the root note of the chord progression.

For a little more depth, and because I’ve decided to experiment with new media, here’s a video on the subject:

Songwright.co.uk – Riffs on a Bass Line from Tom Slatter on Vimeo.

I can’t teach you how to write a good one, but what I’ve covered in this post, and what I cover in my next post, will hopefully give you a few new ideas for discovering your own riffs.