This is probably the most relatable content regarding drop-tuned chord voicings. It's cool to see how Rabea made these revelations over time a lot like my own time working around drop-tuned and there definitely isn't enough content like this. Love seeing Rabea at Sweetwater!
Anyone who saw Riff Wars 3 knows about the "Third Riff". Definitely the most impressive riff of that series. ¡Love Rabea! And Nick, you're an awesome interviewer.
I think that theory is a great thing. Music is like a language and theory can teach how to use that language to tell stories. But I agree that on the flip side one can get too boxed in, and instead of helping to create musical stories, the theory can become a limiting box of rules to follow.
I used to work with a guy who was totally illiterate. When we went to a restaurant for lunch, he could not read the menu. He spoke very intelligently, very thoughtfully and could sing very well. We got him on stage on night at a karaoke bar and stunned us. He sang from memory because he could not read the words on the screen. That's how I view music theory. Just because you don't know it's a E major 7 add 9 doesn't mean you can't play it, understand when it is supposed to be used and when to go to it. If someone asked what chord that was, you'd shrug your shoulders and tell them you don't know. But you DO know what it is, you lack the ability to communicate to others. And that's the real benefit of knowing theory. You get 5 musicians who all know theory and your practices and writing as a group multiply exponentially. "...let's try that again except this time in the key of F"...."major or minor?" "okay, minor. And come in on the downbeat of bar II and ..." You get conversations like that. Otherwise you're trying to tell people what you mean in your own way, and that's confusing as hell.
Theory explains why it works because it is about context but it can never dictate what it supposed to be. It is history lessons versus future prediction. Your ear predicts the future, what your music will be.
Has someone already said that there is a 10 min loop of this riff available? Just search Rabea Riff Wars Riff. It’s very fun to play along with it. This is seriously a transformative riff for me. It opened up my mind on what drop D is capable of and seeing Rabea expand on it here is amazing. Thank you!
3:28 the "passing chord" played in that position is functionally an inversion of the major V chord. The major V in a minor scale is a common borrowed chord from the parallel major so it sounds very natural to use in minor progressions
Omg we cant move on from this riff can we? haha it still haunts me in my dreams. best riff of that series honestly, i'd love to listen to it in a full song
It is crazy when I was in my band in early 2000s, late 90s, I had come up with some of these chords from Drop D, and I never seen them anywhere else and it was like I was the first person to discover them. Later in life, I heard Rabea playing and instantly knew he was playing these chords. I love everything this guy makes.
You just told my story too brother lol. Band in late 90’s to early 2000’s and I voiced all these chords in drop D and had no point of reference. I’ll settle on saying we were all the first to discover these cool riffs. 😁
Wait wait wait what the hell, i thought the video ends and rabea just play the riffs again, but that's more, and holy shit that is sooooo good, giving me unexpected goosebumps out of nowhere, damn you rabea 😂😂 make that's a full song already 😂😂😂
Do more of these “Steal From” videos. They are spectacular. Rabea is my favorite guitar player for a while now. I did actually loop that riff I’ll admit and heard it a bunch of times.
Excellent interview, I wasn't bored and totally all in for this. I've been watching Rabea for awhile. I have always loved his sound and musical choices, sick guitar player. Thanks for sharing this!
Sweetwater THANK YOU for this video. I'm literally in the same beginning phase of exploring guitar as Rabea explains in this, and it's hard for me to equate a lot of the stuff i'm supposed to learn into the whole drop tuning thing, but in reality I just am playing in drop tuning 24/7 currently as that's what most of my favorite bands do and I love the sound/aesthetic of playing in Drop tunings. This was an awesome wealth of knowledge on how to get more melodic as I'm exploring how to make riffs of my own much more now instead of just playing the 20 tool songs I learned while disregarding every other element of learning the instrument.
That passing chord you’re talking about would be called a D/F# and you are quite correct in calling it a passing chord. My favorite thing about drop tuning is that you can grab all these upper extensions. Lots of upper extensions that you wouldn’t be able to grab any other way. Like a minor maj7 add9 chord. Which a guitarist wouldnt be able to grab all those extensions in standard tuning and THAT is a VERY colorful chord with a super unique tonality that you really rarely hear and I’ve kind of made that tonality a big part of my “sound” as a songwriter/guitarist. Or a more common and pretty tonality, but one that can be played with more extensions in it would be a minor 7 add9 which I heard you play at 11:06. Another would be a major #11 b13 chord. Super lush voicing of a major chord that only a pianist would be able to grab with all the extensions if not for drop tuning.
Drop D has always been my favourite tuning. There's so much scope to add extra strings in for massive chords and having the ability to have the open strings gel together so well allows for beefed up lead work as well. It's a great tuning and more versatile than it tends to get credit for.
Great video! Please do more videos like this. There isn’t a whole lot of good videos out there with lessons and instruction on more modern metal and drop tuning. Although If anybody has any recommendations I would love to know about them!
Essentially an easy way to think of one element of drop tuned voicings is that if you play all 6 strings your top string is always going to be an add9 to your chord if you’re hitting any other extensions on strings aside from the top string. So if you’re barring straight across a fret, your top string will always be an add9 and your third string (if it’s played on the same fret as your root) will always be a dominant 7. That’s like half of drop d chord “theory” in the simplest terms. Theory sounds much scarier than it actually is. The basics of it are incredibly straight forward and something any guitarist can actually learn in an afternoon. I think a lot of people combine “knowing theory” and having the fretboard memorized and knowing what scale position you’re playing at all times. Which plenty of amazing guitarists have memorized, but I’d say most people that “know theory” still have to take a second to think about what scale position they’re playing at any given place on the fretboard. It’s definitely easiest to memorize on the fly in chord voicings. Because you know where your root is which gives you the starting point you’re building from. I think the easiest way to memorize scale positions all over the fret board is memorizing the tonalities of the intervals. That’s probably easier said than done I guess, but that has always been the easiest way to know what I’m playing anywhere on the fretboard.
Pleeeeeeeeeease make a song out of this riff Bea! It is such a genuine pleasure to hear again that melody, it's like the guitar becomes a six voice epic choir and it sings so beautifully. Wonderful video, it's so inspiring to see your approach to writing; you're my favourite guitar player. Ever. Cheers ❤️
Sweetwater is probably my favorite music store to buy from! Usually they send a package of candy with your order. ( green apple jolly ranchers ) sometimes! LOL And they even call you after a purchase to see how things are going! You can call them back and they will talk music even if your not looking to buy anything at the moment. Pretty sure all of their employees are musicians and they are awesome, Nick is one of my favorites ! Look how humble he is with Rabea? Granted I would be the same way,Rabea is a future rock god!!!
It‘s funny understanding way more (theoretically) about what he is playing there than the man himself. I got similar inspiration from Billy Talent back in the days but when I discovered Bea there was definitely some additional approaches and voicings that I added and all that very much inspired my songwriting that I still like to do today. Very nice stuff!
Ha already made a video in which he breaks down this riff in a similar way, on his own channel, 3 years ago, it's called My Approach To Heavy Riffs, if I remember correctly.
Watching this video reminds me of Ian d'Sa (Billy Talent). He uses Drop D to create some really nice chord/melody progressions! Very underrated guitar player!
Rabea no doubt ! . Mark tremonti does some really cool stuff with tunings like playing melodies on top of his chords , sounded like an over dub , but just him . Great video .
Ehh... it's okay... I only played the original RW3 video maybe a hundred times in that section the first time I saw it... because it was AWESOME!!! Coolest riff of the 21st century!
Great vid and for someone like me whos last band was solely in drop D I can definitely relate to the versatility of the tuning. I'd be interested though in how everyone communicated a chord to a fellow band member? Even though we were in drop D half step down so C# we always called the third fret a G chord, 5th fret an A chord etc. Was always easier to say it this way instead of calling it what it actually was.
Those "passing chords" are just major chords with the 3rd in the bass. When used in a "passing chord way" like "D/F# to Gm" it's acting as a secondary dominant on the minor vi chord. you can use this anywhere in the key in a typical secondary dominant capacity.
Why isnt anyone saying anything about the great Nick Bowcottt... Grim Reaper kicked ass. The only reason they didnt get even more popular was cause the 80s was image oriented and their singer was over wieght.. So the hell what , he could scream like a f8888ing banshee... ,Right on Nick
I haven't played a guitar in anything but Drop-D for over a decade. I do some utterly strange tunings, but my goto tuning is Drop-D. There are emotional contexts for frequencies which are universal and map to chakras, which map to thought. D has an energy which is very different from E, which is what most people are used to hearing. It's a powerful, deeper and more ponderous frequency. C is also interesting, but I haven't had time to exploit that energy. But the overall tuning (to me) is much more fun to play. There are some very interesting intervals available in Drop-D that are directly available and are a ridiculous amount of fun to exploit - as Rabea points out - resolutions which build a lot of tension. Edit: Some really interesting tunings can be exploited from building off of F. Johnny Reznik is an interesting person in this arena, because he is completely open minded about tunings, and he has done some amazing compositions with completely arbitrary tunings.
Each of those chords (actually simply two note intervals for part of it) had so much color to them it was surprising to see how few notes actually comprise them. Bea doing more with less.
Nick and Rabea had a blast breaking down this riff from Riff Wars 3 - how'd you do? 🎸
This is probably the most relatable content regarding drop-tuned chord voicings. It's cool to see how Rabea made these revelations over time a lot like my own time working around drop-tuned and there definitely isn't enough content like this. Love seeing Rabea at Sweetwater!
Anyone who saw Riff Wars 3 knows about the "Third Riff". Definitely the most impressive riff of that series. ¡Love Rabea! And Nick, you're an awesome interviewer.
Finding out how limited Bea’s “Theory knowledge” is, is hugely inspiring. It’s about practice and knowing how to make what you want. Just play.
I think that theory is a great thing. Music is like a language and theory can teach how to use that language to tell stories. But I agree that on the flip side one can get too boxed in, and instead of helping to create musical stories, the theory can become a limiting box of rules to follow.
I used to work with a guy who was totally illiterate. When we went to a restaurant for lunch, he could not read the menu. He spoke very intelligently, very thoughtfully and could sing very well. We got him on stage on night at a karaoke bar and stunned us. He sang from memory because he could not read the words on the screen. That's how I view music theory. Just because you don't know it's a E major 7 add 9 doesn't mean you can't play it, understand when it is supposed to be used and when to go to it. If someone asked what chord that was, you'd shrug your shoulders and tell them you don't know. But you DO know what it is, you lack the ability to communicate to others. And that's the real benefit of knowing theory. You get 5 musicians who all know theory and your practices and writing as a group multiply exponentially. "...let's try that again except this time in the key of F"...."major or minor?" "okay, minor. And come in on the downbeat of bar II and ..." You get conversations like that. Otherwise you're trying to tell people what you mean in your own way, and that's confusing as hell.
@@valuedhumanoid6574 exactly. Theory is an amazing tool for communicating and understanding, but you can still make good songs without it
Yeah kind of surprising given he was a student at the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford.
Theory explains why it works because it is about context but it can never dictate what it supposed to be.
It is history lessons versus future prediction. Your ear predicts the future, what your music will be.
Just in case nobody else mentioned it, Rabea's incredible right hand work is truly amazing.
Has someone already said that there is a 10 min loop of this riff available? Just search Rabea Riff Wars Riff. It’s very fun to play along with it.
This is seriously a transformative riff for me. It opened up my mind on what drop D is capable of and seeing Rabea expand on it here is amazing. Thank you!
3:28 the "passing chord" played in that position is functionally an inversion of the major V chord. The major V in a minor scale is a common borrowed chord from the parallel major so it sounds very natural to use in minor progressions
Omg we cant move on from this riff can we? haha it still haunts me in my dreams. best riff of that series honestly, i'd love to listen to it in a full song
I love Nick, he seems so kind and humble 😀
It is crazy when I was in my band in early 2000s, late 90s, I had come up with some of these chords from Drop D, and I never seen them anywhere else and it was like I was the first person to discover them. Later in life, I heard Rabea playing and instantly knew he was playing these chords. I love everything this guy makes.
You just told my story too brother lol. Band in late 90’s to early 2000’s and I voiced all these chords in drop D and had no point of reference. I’ll settle on saying we were all the first to discover these cool riffs. 😁
Wait wait wait what the hell, i thought the video ends and rabea just play the riffs again, but that's more, and holy shit that is sooooo good, giving me unexpected goosebumps out of nowhere, damn you rabea 😂😂 make that's a full song already 😂😂😂
This is an awesome drop tune lesson !!
Do more of these “Steal From” videos. They are spectacular. Rabea is my favorite guitar player for a while now. I did actually loop that riff I’ll admit and heard it a bunch of times.
Excellent interview, I wasn't bored and totally all in for this. I've been watching Rabea for awhile. I have always loved his sound and musical choices, sick guitar player. Thanks for sharing this!
Sweetwater THANK YOU for this video. I'm literally in the same beginning phase of exploring guitar as Rabea explains in this, and it's hard for me to equate a lot of the stuff i'm supposed to learn into the whole drop tuning thing, but in reality I just am playing in drop tuning 24/7 currently as that's what most of my favorite bands do and I love the sound/aesthetic of playing in Drop tunings. This was an awesome wealth of knowledge on how to get more melodic as I'm exploring how to make riffs of my own much more now instead of just playing the 20 tool songs I learned while disregarding every other element of learning the instrument.
Please keep the Rabea content coming Sweetwater! He’s awesome!
So cool to see Rabea on the Sweetwater channel. I've loved his music for years and years, especially his work in Dorje
This is literally the best video I've seen on creating interesting chords in drop tunings (who's gonna tell Nick that Rabea likes drop C#?)
Wow, so simple yet so effective. Excellent video, crazy I’ve been playing for so long and never approached drop tunings like that before
The addition to the riff at the end!!!! Ugh this needs to be a song!!!
Aw man, i've given up hope to have this specific video a long time ago ! So cool :D Rabea is such a riff monster
It's so weird to see, even in the comments, how we all made the same discoverys over the years in almost the same ways.
Love this breakdown /lesson.
The tone is insane
That passing chord you’re talking about would be called a D/F# and you are quite correct in calling it a passing chord. My favorite thing about drop tuning is that you can grab all these upper extensions. Lots of upper extensions that you wouldn’t be able to grab any other way. Like a minor maj7 add9 chord. Which a guitarist wouldnt be able to grab all those extensions in standard tuning and THAT is a VERY colorful chord with a super unique tonality that you really rarely hear and I’ve kind of made that tonality a big part of my “sound” as a songwriter/guitarist. Or a more common and pretty tonality, but one that can be played with more extensions in it would be a minor 7 add9 which I heard you play at 11:06. Another would be a major #11 b13 chord. Super lush voicing of a major chord that only a pianist would be able to grab with all the extensions if not for drop tuning.
would it be correct to also call the D/F# just a D third inversion? Or is it the same thing, but the propper name is D/F#?
Rabea is an INSPIRATION!
i never forgot that riff. that riffwars 3. it was legendary really...
Drop D has always been my favourite tuning. There's so much scope to add extra strings in for massive chords and having the ability to have the open strings gel together so well allows for beefed up lead work as well. It's a great tuning and more versatile than it tends to get credit for.
This riff is in drop C# not drop D
Excellent explanation from Rabea, made really easy sense - thank you!
This is so much awesome information! So excited to experiment with this knowledge! Bea is the man! 🤘
This is exactly what I needed rn! My weekend is gonna be loud and proud! Thank you for all those insights, Bea!
So happy to see Rabea on here.
Still watch that episode to this day. Rabae is a beast 👌
We must protect Rabea Massad at all costs. I f*king love that guy!
I love Rabea’s playing, and this host made it even more interesting ! Good job Sweetwater 😎
SO glad he mentoned he also thought of it as more of a chord progression because it is. I still LOVE it!
Great drop D lesson! The band "Hum" opened me up to this style of playing.
Rabea’s such an awesome player. Also “happy clappy” is my new favorite phrase.
Great video! Please do more videos like this. There isn’t a whole lot of good videos out there with lessons and instruction on more modern metal and drop tuning.
Although If anybody has any recommendations I would love to know about them!
What a beautiful guitar
Essentially an easy way to think of one element of drop tuned voicings is that if you play all 6 strings your top string is always going to be an add9 to your chord if you’re hitting any other extensions on strings aside from the top string. So if you’re barring straight across a fret, your top string will always be an add9 and your third string (if it’s played on the same fret as your root) will always be a dominant 7. That’s like half of drop d chord “theory” in the simplest terms. Theory sounds much scarier than it actually is. The basics of it are incredibly straight forward and something any guitarist can actually learn in an afternoon. I think a lot of people combine “knowing theory” and having the fretboard memorized and knowing what scale position you’re playing at all times. Which plenty of amazing guitarists have memorized, but I’d say most people that “know theory” still have to take a second to think about what scale position they’re playing at any given place on the fretboard. It’s definitely easiest to memorize on the fly in chord voicings. Because you know where your root is which gives you the starting point you’re building from. I think the easiest way to memorize scale positions all over the fret board is memorizing the tonalities of the intervals. That’s probably easier said than done I guess, but that has always been the easiest way to know what I’m playing anywhere on the fretboard.
Rabea gets it 👏👏
Lovely jobely
Pleeeeeeeeeease make a song out of this riff Bea! It is such a genuine pleasure to hear again that melody, it's like the guitar becomes a six voice epic choir and it sings so beautifully. Wonderful video, it's so inspiring to see your approach to writing; you're my favourite guitar player. Ever.
Cheers ❤️
Rabea is a wizard on the guitar one of my guitar heros
O damnnn thats just unlocked soo much after soo many years haha cheers Rabea !
The most inspiring riff from riff wars!
Great video guys, and Bea, once again...Just freaking Bad-Ass!!! Loved the ending jam!!!
Sweetwater is probably my favorite music store to buy from! Usually they send a package of candy with your order. ( green apple jolly ranchers ) sometimes! LOL And they even call you after a purchase to see how things are going! You can call them back and they will talk music even if your not looking to buy anything at the moment. Pretty sure all of their employees are musicians and they are awesome, Nick is one of my favorites ! Look how humble he is with Rabea? Granted I would be the same way,Rabea is a future rock god!!!
one of the best riffs possibly ever written
20:23 - Rabea warmed up, adding in extra stuff
I loved this riff when that came out
this is awesome and something i never knew I wanted. rob you are a savage riff beast
It‘s funny understanding way more (theoretically) about what he is playing there than the man himself. I got similar inspiration from Billy Talent back in the days but when I discovered Bea there was definitely some additional approaches and voicings that I added and all that very much inspired my songwriting that I still like to do today. Very nice stuff!
Enjoyed every sec in this video 😍
Awesome that we're getting a dedicated breakdown of this legendary riff 5 years later, did not expect that!
Ha already made a video in which he breaks down this riff in a similar way, on his own channel, 3 years ago, it's called My Approach To Heavy Riffs, if I remember correctly.
@@bencegyorog2897 yeah I saw that right after commenting haha, but thanks!
Great tone.
that amp sound amazing!!!
Great video. Both guys are really awesome.
My favourite player of the modern era by miles. What a monster. This was great! 🤘
But that one finger trick works so well 😂 And Sweetwater, are you experiencing a cable shortage??
yr probably joking but I think they both wanted 2 use the same amp : )
Great video. Enjoyed this one. Great job
Watching this video reminds me of Ian d'Sa (Billy Talent). He uses Drop D to create some really nice chord/melody progressions! Very underrated guitar player!
Met him, super nice man. 🤘
Rabea no doubt ! . Mark tremonti does some really cool stuff with tunings like playing melodies on top of his chords , sounded like an over dub , but just him . Great video .
Anyone who likes this should check out Totemist. It’s Rabea’s more recent band project and it’s some of his best stuff so far IMO.
gotta love both these guys. Absoloutly awsome
I really like Rabea...I became a fan when i watched them do the cover of Wicked Game...he just seems like a class act
also i want that 10-hour version video
Ehh... it's okay... I only played the original RW3 video maybe a hundred times in that section the first time I saw it... because it was AWESOME!!! Coolest riff of the 21st century!
It’s interesting that a CZcams riff is so well known.
Great video
Such a beast.
it should DENATELY BE IN A SONG. that riff is King.
Great vid and for someone like me whos last band was solely in drop D I can definitely relate to the versatility of the tuning.
I'd be interested though in how everyone communicated a chord to a fellow band member? Even though we were in drop D half step down so C# we always called the third fret a G chord, 5th fret an A chord etc. Was always easier to say it this way instead of calling it what it actually was.
Ah Rabea, I am a huge fan of his band Toska. Dude is a beast.
20:30 goodness gracious
Ahh man, thanks for breaking it down for us :D
That's a sick lookin tele.
So, when is that Rabea guitar coming to SW?? That guitar looks and sounds amazing!
Great video👍
Those "passing chords" are just major chords with the 3rd in the bass. When used in a "passing chord way" like "D/F# to Gm" it's acting as a secondary dominant on the minor vi chord. you can use this anywhere in the key in a typical secondary dominant capacity.
I wish i could buy a Rabea at the local store.
3:28 That type of chord is something Yngwie Malmsteen uses all the time in his music as well. Sounds great!
The riff is actually written in Drop C when I learned it.
Bro we are still waiting for the full song
Bea: "I couldn't turn it into a whole song."
Also Bea: 20:24
I think so many of us figured out these chords on our own, haha
The first few chords clean reminds me of Black Sabbath's "Orchid".
Me too 🎯
Why isnt anyone saying anything about the great Nick Bowcottt... Grim Reaper kicked ass. The only reason they didnt get even more popular was cause the 80s was image oriented and their singer was over wieght.. So the hell what , he could scream like a f8888ing banshee... ,Right on Nick
Fluff and Dines been quiet since this video dropped. Sweetwater coming in with the Bea constrictor.
When i play the acoustic guitar of our church i tuned it drop d
I haven't played a guitar in anything but Drop-D for over a decade. I do some utterly strange tunings, but my goto tuning is Drop-D. There are emotional contexts for frequencies which are universal and map to chakras, which map to thought. D has an energy which is very different from E, which is what most people are used to hearing. It's a powerful, deeper and more ponderous frequency. C is also interesting, but I haven't had time to exploit that energy. But the overall tuning (to me) is much more fun to play. There are some very interesting intervals available in Drop-D that are directly available and are a ridiculous amount of fun to exploit - as Rabea points out - resolutions which build a lot of tension. Edit: Some really interesting tunings can be exploited from building off of F. Johnny Reznik is an interesting person in this arena, because he is completely open minded about tunings, and he has done some amazing compositions with completely arbitrary tunings.
Is it like naruto chakra?
drop-tuned chord voicings MENOR AND MAJOR! TOGETHER!
gear? please. Are they playing direct into the Victory amp or is there other gear we can't see? Thx.
Each of those chords (actually simply two note intervals for part of it) had so much color to them it was surprising to see how few notes actually comprise them. Bea doing more with less.
I'd love to see a breakdown of the jam after the frogleap version of Africa
Anyone else hear "How Dry I Am" in that riff?
Am I missing something, but, the diagrams don't match up with the way it's being played correct?
laughed when i saw this was a thing
but yeah the riff is sick