It\u2019s hard to name a more influential rock band than The Beatles. They released over 200 songs between 1962 and 1970 that continue to inspire guitarists and songwriters even a half-century later. Since it\u2019s quite literally impossible to nail down their \u201cbest\u201d riffs, Ayla Tesler-Mabe is here to share her six favorite guitar riffs by The Beatles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve Got A Feeling<\/strong> Helter Skelter<\/strong> Day Tripper<\/strong> Hey Bulldog<\/strong> Paperback Writer<\/strong> I Want You (She\u2019s So Heavy)<\/strong> And there you have Ayla\u2019s favorite guitar riffs by The Beatles. But don\u2019t stop here, there are many other great riffs out there for you to learn and play!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Join Ayla Tesler-Mabe and learn how to play 6 of the most iconic guitar riffs by The Beatles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":1492,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9,335,28,112,270,292,151],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guitareo.com\/riff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guitareo.com\/riff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guitareo.com\/riff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guitareo.com\/riff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guitareo.com\/riff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1485"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.guitareo.com\/riff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1494,"href":"https:\/\/www.guitareo.com\/riff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485\/revisions\/1494"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guitareo.com\/riff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guitareo.com\/riff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guitareo.com\/riff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guitareo.com\/riff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
The first riff we\u2019ll be breaking down is off the 1970 album Let It Be. To play this part you\u2019ll need to use an adapted A major chord shape. The key to making it sound like the original is staying loose with your picking. Even though you\u2019ll be aiming to hit certain strings, you\u2019ll want to hit the adjacent strings at the same time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Time to turn up the distortion for this one. Paul McCartney was inspired to write this song because of The Who\u2019s \u201cI Can See For Miles\u201d as well as some press accusations that he was only capable of writing sappy, sentimental ballads. This riff makes use of some classic blues techniques as well as some heavy rock moves that are still used in modern metal and other harder genres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This one might be the most recognizable Beatles riff of all time. This song was the 7th highest-selling single of the 1960s. This riff takes a lot of influence from the American soul music of that time. This riff isn\u2019t too challenging and is played mostly using open strings with the E and A chord shapes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019ll get a little heavy again with this riff from the Yellow Submarine album. This guitar part was played on a Gibson SG and has a quintessential 60s sound to it. The scale that this riff comes from is mostly the B minor blues scale which shows just how musical that scale can be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paul was challenged by his Aunt to write a song that wasn\u2019t about love and this song was the result. The guitar riff from this song is played by placing a bar behind a G power chord so that you can let the notes ring out and blend together. If you can play a basic bar chord then you should be able to get this riff down pretty quick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is a lot of exceptional guitar work on this track, but the riff played during the heavy breakdown at the end of the song is what we\u2019re going to focus on. To play this riff, you\u2019ll need to tune your low E string down to a D. If you\u2019ve never done this before, don\u2019t be intimidated, you can do this with any guitar and it\u2019s not going to have any negative effects on your instrument. <\/p>\n\n\n\n