For this article I will guide you through the main riff of Edwyn Collins “A Girl Like You” hit from 1995.
The main riff is adapted for people who do not have too much experience with the guitar yet, which means no stringbending, being able to use open strings and be able to play all the notes in the first, open position of the fretboard.
The lesson is backed up by two videos, part one deals with learning the riff, in part two I show you which chords will work to back up the riff, very usefull if you would like to play the riff with some of your guitarplaying friends.
Here is the tab. for the main riff:
Am Am Dm Em Am Am Dm Am
/ / / / / / / /
E ———————–0———————-3—–0——————0—————————–
B ————–1—3——-3—-1——–1——————–1—3———3—-1——0———-
G ———2————————-2–2——————-2————————–2——-0—2–
D ——————————————————————————————————-
A ——————————————————————————————————-
E ——————————————————————————————————-
Listen and watch both videos at the bottom of this article
Playing Guitar on Your Own?
Sing the riff (Hum or nah nah nah, or la la la etc.) play the chords so you get the full idea of how it sounds when playing with two guitars.
Access to looping pedals/devices?
Loop the riff on your machine and play the chords on the guitar.
The suggested strums in the tab. are basic, they are there for those of you who just started out with the guitar. If you are more experienced experiment with different feels and also try the chords in different positions of the fretboard. If you watch Part Two you can see that I quickly leave the open chords to play partial chords in different positions on the neck.
The original riff of this song is in the key of Cm instead of Am, try transposing the tab. to thekey of Cm to get more milage out of the riff, similar for chords, transpose them to the orginal key.
Edwyn’s version also uses some stringbending, which I left out, see if you can play the riff while using some stringbending as well.
As for effects, the original sound of the riff uses a Fuzz. Not sure which make (have not done the research yet………….)
I tend to use the Boss FZ-2 and the sound of this pedal comes very close to Edwyn orginal. FZ-2’s are from the 90s, and this song is from ’95, so maybe Edwyn did use one of those? Who known eh?
Okay, have fun with this little riff here, and hope to see you soon again.
Eddie
Check out Part One for Feel and which Fingers to use:
Here is Part Two for the Chords:
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Eddie