Riffs
The following exercise uses the phrase you learned in the exercise 15 and treats it as a riff. A riff is a short repeating pattern which may be altered to fit various chord changes. Riffs are very common in Blues. As you learn new notes and rhythms, try inventing some of your own riffs based on what you have learned.
The Eighth Rest
This is an eighth rest.
It indicates half a beat of silence.
The use of eighth rests on the beat creates an effect known as syncopation, which means displacing the natural flow of accents from on the beat to off the beat.
The following example demonstrates a syncopated rhythm created by the use of eighth rests. If you have trouble with the timing, count out loud and clap the rhythm until you are confident with it.
Here is a riff which makes use of eighth rests on the first and fourth beats. Once again, if you have trouble with the rhythm, clap it while counting out loud and then try playing the rhythm on one note.
This example takes the previous riff and expands it to fit the 12 Bar Blues progression. Notice that the basic rhythm is a repeating two bar pattern, i.e., the rhythm stays the same throughout the progression, only the pitches of the notes change.
