I havnt been playing guitar that long, just a few months and I'm slowly getting alright, and I've been asked to play rhythm im a black metal band, and anyway I would like to write a few riffs or even a song and not just play what Im told too... I just cant get anything that sounds good haha. Any tips? Influenced heavily by early mayhem, mysticum, ZBF ect...

look at ur fav bands, try finding out what they did to come up with riffs, use some scales, parctice practice practice ALOT i personaly cant write riffs for shit, to me thats definatly the hardest thing on guitar to do, write music.

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Just jam and see what comes out, often the harder you try the less ideas you get. Also have a tape recorder handy so you can record ideas and then listen back, if you still like the idea the next day when you listen to it, it might be worth working on it some more. Plus if you have a recording you can re learn it should you forget how it originally was played.

You could also look at some of your favourite songs and see how they are constructed and work on themes similar to that(try not to rip them off blatantly)
Try to create a good groove rather than cram as many notes as possible straight away, once you have a good vibe nailed down you can then add to the riff to make it more technical once you are used to playing it.

Don't always go for the obvious, if you play a really odd scale at the end and it works for you, use it. If the chord progression creates a different feel and you like how it sounds use it.

Jam with the other guitarist in the band a lot and get him to help you expand upon your ideas, he may have the verse riff that fits with your chorus idea, if you don't ask you'll never know! With 2 guitars try and play different things to each other. Bounce ideas off each other!
If the other guitarist is a decent bloke he'll only be to happy to work on stuff with you after all you are in the band aswell! If he gets all funny about it and refuses he's a twat and I'd consider working with another band!

And have fun.

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Trem pick a bunch of diatonic scales...Bam, black metal classic!

Hum a melody or riff. Then transpose that to guitar. Thats what I do and it makes it alot easier to write for me.

Try taking sections of scales and apply them unconventionally. Use chromatics to piece in sections of the scales. Try using bends and slides too to add flavor.

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play alot more songs, then ask us again when youve played for more than a few months

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yeah practice, but i find that its easier for some people to come up with their own riffs, personally , i suck at it, i end up mimicking riffs i've heard and listened to alot, so I would say dont listen or get any songs into your head before you start trying to write your own riffs or you might end up playing it instead, dunno it happens to me lol

your writing style comes over time... I dont think theres any one bit of advice to be given that will provide instant results. I remember when i started writing, it was all fucked up or didnt sound fucked enough, aka, too perfect.

Buuuuut if I must post advice, ill just say that ringing open strings is ultra gr1m.

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I was drunk one time with the other guys in my band right after I started playing guitar, and I kept playing this thing over and over again, and thought it was fucking sweet. After a while I shut them all up and had them listen to what I was playing, and said we should make it into a song. Our other guitarist is like, "ok, it's a song. It's For Whom the Bell Tolls by Metallica, you dumb shit." Needless to say, I was pissed, but it was still funny. So that happens to me too, least it used to.

I find that if I just randomly play certain scales and such, and just run through the scales all over the fretboard, eventually I can come up with something good. It seems to be the more random shit I play, the better the ideas that I get. Also, learning a bunch of songs similar to what I want to write generally helps me. Hope that helps a bit.

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well, for think up riffs in a rythmic context try and dissect some scales, dont over complicate things and keep in mind some sequencing, also power chords can be used interchangably in some riffs to give abit more crunch and format while still keeping the melody

look at power tabs to see ideas. Also, try and see how many ways you can plays all the notes in a scale from first to last, but by making your own pattern of it. thats called sequencing

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I think the best way to write anything is to just sit down and play. Don't concentrate on trying too hard. If you try to force a riff it will likely end up sounding just that -- forced. As mentioned earlier, if you have a way of recording that will help a lot. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, just some way of getting your ideas recorded so you can check them out later. Also, while staying within the realms of theory is not a bad thing, don't be stuck in it. If you play something and it sounds good but doesn't fall in to the right key or scale, who cares? Fuck it. If it sounds good, it sounds good.

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Compose the music in your head, and then figure it out on guitar. Works wonders for me.

But then again I dont have many problems writting riffs

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I find that one of the most inspiring things for me is to play with a drummer and perhaps a bassist or if that can't be arranged, a drum machine or some for of loop. Hope that helps.

If you know music theory and how to write music, when you come up with an idea it's real easy to write it down on paper. But for tab-only losers like me that's very hard... I usually come up with a nice melody in my head, but I can't write anything down, so then scour for my guitar but then I'm not humming something appropriate for my guitar's tuning, and in the end I forget a really kick ass riff. So what do I do? I record my own humming, study it later on and transpose it to guitar.

If you want to play black metal riffs, this method would probably be very useful to make your riffs sound planned out and not sound as "random" as some bad BM riffs. Listen to Immortal, let that inspire you.

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You bet you do Either that or learn how to read/write sheet music.

I don't really advise alot of scales and etc that others are suggesting; this is black metal. Influenced by .. first or second wave black metal by the looks of it. Alot of tremolo and powerchords.

You need to go out and start learning a shitload of black metal riffs. A large diversity of different bands. Perhaps back to first wave; some Bathory? Maybe if you want some more modern elements, find the newer wave black metal and learn some of it.

ya just write mother fucker

That is somewhat similar to how I write riffs, except for writing with another guitarist (I'm greedy as far as creative control goes) and works well for me. I also use powertab to get the riffs down perfectly and to figure out what time signature they're in.


You can also try writing when you're totally fucked off your mind. I'm going to incorperate some stuff into my songs that I wrote when I was playing on shrooms.

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my personal strategy:

find a scale that sounds cool. (minor harmonic, half whole/whole half diminished)
fuck with the notes in random order to get your BASIC melody
change note length: add trem picking and minor/diminished chords, or drawn out chords.
put pinch harmonics where they sound like they should be
add off beat notes (if you want) to change the feel

add harmony to your built up and preferably completed melody (i prefer to go 3 semitones up for dark sounding stuff)

make whatever changes neccesary

voila.

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pick a power chord as fast as you can... slide down to another one, and up to another one, and back to the first one.. get someone to play a blast beat too

Add some raspy vokills and make sure you've got extremely poor recording quality, then you've got true kvlt grim black metal.

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Just learn from what you play by other bands, thats what will get you started.

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yeah yeah i forgot the vokills

Writing memorable riffs can be tricky if you have little fretboard knowledge. Learn alot of music from bands that influence you, and study what they do to create a riff, and how they tie those riffs together into a song.

Seraphic, you said you were asked to play in a BM band, but is that style something you're truly into or are you doing it just to play? Definitely not questioning your integrity or anything, but I think BM is something you truly have to feel in order to play. Sure, some may slag it off as just tremolo picking a bunch of chords and void of any real quality, but BM isn't necessarily as easy as that. Look at bands like Blut Aus Nord, Leviathan, Deathspell Omega, and many others. There are always bands coming along to push the genre into new and blacker realms. Even some of the "Darkthrone clones" have something new to offer now and then.

Like some of the other posts, tremolo picked chords will make up the major of your songs. Sometimes nothing more than two chords for a particular riff with or without some sort of slow dissonant melody. Some good comments posted suggested to listen to a bunch of bands, and I agree with this completely. Unless you're trying to play epic or symphonic BM, some of the best songs are usually just a small handful of riffs. Kinda reminiscent of good 'ol rock & roll, something that sticks in your head more easily and isn't so mind-numbingly complex that a listener would get lost trying to decipher. It's more about the atmosphere and feeling than how many brutal riffs you can cram into a song. Good luck.

Regardless of what everyone else has said.

The way i write riffs is just think a tune in my head and play it on guitar and yaya new riff

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Use same scales as your favorite bands use. Think some cool riff in your head and try to play it. When you got it, write it to paper and do some corrections if needed. And here you got an awesome riff. That's how I do it. Except my riffs aren't cool.

This is probably said already, but who cares.

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Riffs are easy to come up with, as far as song structure goes, thats where you actually have to think. The most important thing is working with your drummer to come up with a driving rythm behind your riffs. Only then can you begin to craft the perfect heavy metal song, young samurai....

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Just write some death metal, it's easier. If not that, try some Steve Vai or Satriani. Of course you may grow boobs, but that's alright, cause you'll be playing really beautiful music. Best advice is to start covering songs then work on riffs and throw them out there. If at first.....

Also you have to dedicate yourself. Don't think you can sit around all day being a douche, then pick up the guitar and write the next Freezing Moon. Mysticum is really easy, it's mostly just fast power chords. Not to say they're bad, in fact they are one of the more under appreciated bands. They have now put out some material after the In the Streams of Inferno album....check it out!