I use the following ‘splitting the chord’ technique and combine it with tight palm muting to create a percussive effect. In the following example, notice how the sequence is ‘pushed’, right from the first bar. Quite often you will see something that is two or four bars long with a small fill at the end leading back to the beginning of the riff. Many chord vamps fall into similar structures. We will begin with some simple rhythmic vamping ideas before developing them further.

This is the approach taken by many great guitarists from Buddy Holly to Brian May to Angus Young. While often used in isolation for rhythmic ‘vamps’, e.g., Summer of ‘69 by Bryan Adams, often the beauty of open chords lies in the fact that they can easily be adjusted or embellished to form interesting riffs and melodies around simple chord shapes. When playing open chords in rock we continually use slight note alterations or omissions to add interest, and make technical adjustments to keep them sounding tight and aggressive so they don’t get overpowered by the amplifier’s distortion. It is strange today to think of musicians like Bill Haley, Cliff Richard, Buddy Holly and Ike Turner as cutting edge rock musicians, but in their day their music caused great controversy and public outrage while pushing the boundaries of popular music. In fact, the use of open chords in rock is a thread that runs from the early beginnings of rock in the ‘50s right through to the modern day. While open-position chords are often associated with acoustic guitar playing, they are also a regular part of many rock guitar riffs.

Mp3 to chords