Top 5 Halloween Riffs: Best Songs for this Spooky Season
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Halloween is just around the corner. Boo! These Halloween riffs are sweeter than candy. Let’s take a look at some seasonal favourites.
Top 5 Haloween Riffs: Best Songs for this Spooky Season
Happy Halloween! Arguably one of the most underrated holidays? There are literally hours of Christmas mixtapes and compilation CDs, but we trick-or-treaters seem to be left out. It’s always great to learn a new song or riff, especially if you can play it at appropriate times.
Combining riffs and chord progressions, this rundown will help you on your way to rocking out on October 31st. Check out these Halloween riffs.
(Don’t Fear) The Reaper – Blue Oyster Cult
Kicking us off is a quintessentially Halloween-orientated banger! Blue Oyster Cult‘s ‘Don’t Fear The Reaper‘ has a great intro riff, followed by an easy-to-follow chord progression.
Let’s start by looking at the chords in the verse. We play each chord for two crotchet beats, and we can count this as ‘one, two’. Covering two beats of the bar, we start with Am, followed by G, F and back to G. This repeats throughout the intro and most of the verse.
Not too scary so far, eh? This chord progression is the foundation for this Halloween riff, as it is a series of arpeggios based around the chords. Moreover, an arpeggio is the notes within a chord played separately. Why not take a look at the TAB below?
Halloween Riffs – (Don’t Fear) The Reaper
Highway to Hell – AC/DC
Following on, we have this appropriate Halloween riff from AC/DC. After all, a list of guitar riffs wouldn’t be complete without Angus Young, would it?
‘Highway to Hell’ is in the key of A Mixolydian. Therefore, the chords are in the key of D Major, but the song revolves around A. As a result, improvising over this track sounds killer!
The riff is fairly straightforward, covering a few simple chords. However, run these chords together and you’ve got a guitar sound as iconic as Bon Scott‘s vocals.
Halloween Riffs – Highway to Hell
Why not get a scarily pricey Gibson SG to go with this new riff?
Zombie – The Cranberries
Thirdly, we’ve got our first instalment of ’90s grunge! Aimed more at beginner players, this is a great addition to our list of Halloween riffs.
‘Zombie‘ is another one of those four-chord songs that never gets old! What are we working with? Em, C, G and D. That’s it! Just those no-frills open chords. Although, if you’re feeling fancy, you could play D/F# instead of the standard D Major chord.
Simple enough, right? Well, we’re not quite done yet. There’s a riff that goes just before the start of the verse. Don’t worry though, you’ll be fine.
Halloween Riffs – Zombie
Halloween Riffs: Creep – Radiohead
As promised, our next Halloween riff is another slice of ’90s grunge.
The chord progression in this track sounds sinister. Here, we have an unusual relationship between major and minor chords. Providing for a timeless piece of music history.
We’re in the key of G Major. But what makes this song so different? Most songs would move in a certain order. Such as I, III and IV. However, ‘Creep‘ starts at I, then moves to III, IV and iv.
Halloween Riffs – Creep
Ghostbusters – Ray Parker. Jr
Concluding our pick of the best Halloween riffs is one of my personal favourites. Accompanying a great film franchise, and providing us with a terrific guitar riff.
‘Ghostbusters‘ doesn’t only have a great riff, but also has one of the most memorable vocal hooks associated with this time of year. Who you gonna call?
There are loads of sections that we could learn from this song! Here’s a great online TAB, so you can have a go at everything should you wish.
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Top 5 Halloween Riffs: If you’ve got it, haunt it!
There we are! It’s another one of our riff rundowns, this time with a little pumpkin spice. Nothing too complicated, I hope? Just some fun riffs and chords to try out at your home or studio. You may even want to add one or two to your next setlist.
Of course, there have to be some honourable mentions when talking about Halloween-specific songs:
- Thriller – Michael Jackson
- Monster Mash – Bobby (Borris) Pickett
- Time Warp – Tenacious D.
- Psycho Killer – Talking Heads
- Voodoo Child (Slight Return) – Jimi Hendrix
If you’re playing some spooky riffs, take a look at these effects that sound just as creepy!
- Dunlop Kirk Hammett Signature Wah
- Digitech Whammy Bass
- Crazy Tube Circuits Sidekick Jr
Videos:
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One response to “Top 5 Halloween Riffs: Best Songs for this Spooky Season”
Surely Jan Terri’s “Get Down Goblin” and The Shaggs’ “It’s Halloween” should get honorable mention.