10 Classic Riffs Every Guitarist Should Know
7. Sweet Child O' Mine - Guns N Roses
Originating as a warm-up exercise by Slash, when the rest of the band heard it in the rehearsal room inspiration struck as Izzy and Duff slipped into the groove and a multi-million seller was born.
It is easy to see its origin as an exercise, and indeed it works very well as a test of co-ordination between pick hand and fretting hand. With all of these riffs, the secret is maintaining consistency, practicing them to the point where you can plkay them on autopilot.
Incidentally, it took numerous attempts to get this right in the studio, not because Slash couldn't play the riff, but because of the difficulty in timing the riff to drop onto the start of the track when the band kIcks in, as they hadn't recorded with a click track to match tempos.