How do you...

[Tony_Iommi]

How do expirenced guitarists come up with Riffs ? I mean, i know they come from chords and whatnot, but sometimes i look at songs like Dio's "Losing My Insanity", Black Sabbath's "After All the Dead", "I" , and "The Mob Rules" and others, and i wonder .. "How on earth did they come up with these riffs?" I mean, some of them are just unconventional, like not a simple chord progression or something, (Like SnowBlind or Iron Man), but are truely complex riffs, like for example, say, the intro part of the song "The Last In Line".

[slaughteredsoul]

i guess it takes a genius:D

[slaughteredsoul]

seriousely....

[Tony_Iommi]

any geniouses care to share? :p

[Coffee]

Lot's of ways to do it. When I'm looking for something entirely abstract though this is what I'll do.

First, I'll just start noodling around, playing all over the place without trying to play a scale or anything else, just being totally nuts and listening for things that pop up. Not very technical but it tends to work. Start playing the same interval and bounding all over the fretboard and see what you hear. For example play a root and a fifth, then keeping that finger pattern, move it all over the place without considering if it will 'fit' or not. Stuff will pop out. Another thing I'll do is take a short chord shape and move it across strings. For example, a standard F major chord on strings 4 through 1 and play it as a full arpeggio, one string after the other. Do it from string 4 to 1, then 1 to 4 then break it, and play 1,3,4,2. Take that shape and play it on strings 5 through 2. Then 6 through 3. Just play with it. Move it up and down the fretboard and across it. Play sections only. Add a 7th to the form when it's moved. When you find something you like, write it out in tab or standard notation AND record it. If you don't you'll be amazed how quickly you lose either the rhythm or the fingering or the slight bends or whatever.

[Tony_Iommi]

Thanks alot. much aprecciated.