Riff (music)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A riff is a short, melodic or rhythmically concise motif in music that is characterized by ostinate repetition of a two- or four-bar melody sequence and has a high recognition value .

General

The Harmony offers a wide variety of methods to the sound of a composition to be optimized. Riffs are a way of creating tension and recognition through repetition. Even with a change in harmony, the riff remains largely unchanged. Its frequent repetition increases tension and can increase the listener's ability to remember to a catchy tune . Together with the hook , it ensures the recognition value, which is of extraordinary importance for the success of a song. Its counterpart in rhythm is called groove .

Word origin

The etymology of this Anglicism is unclear. Allegedly used by musicians since 1917, it has been lexically defined since 1935 as a “melodic phrase in jazz”. It may also be an abbreviation from riffle (to mix) or from refrain . It is also conceivable that it is derived from the English-language spoken theater, where riffing denotes a firework of funny remarks on a topic, i.e. the expansion of individual thoughts into a structured sequence.

The gender of the word riff is given in the Duden as masculine ( the riff) or neuter ( the riff). More often, especially in popular music, the neuter is used.

history

Riffs are not a jazz invention . Structurally, they were already used in classical music , where they were called motif or simply ostinato . The Passacaglia for organ by Johann Sebastian Bach contains a repeated bass theme on which the entire work, written between 1706 and 1713, is based. The most famous “classical riff” is certainly the opening motif of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony with the distinctive three eighth notes on G, followed by a long E- flat in the same dynamic ( fortissimo ). Beethoven's work, which was completed in the spring of 1808, made the sequence of notes so famous that it was often adapted in paraphrases ( Ekseption , May 1969; the intro to Roll Over Beethoven by the Electric Light Orchestra , January 1973; the number one hit A Fifth of Beethoven by Walter Murphy , May 1976).

Riffs first appeared as a concise sound figure in jazz in Jelly Roll Morton's Black Bottom Stomp (recorded on September 15, 1926). Here a break in the rhythm section is used to accommodate a cornet solo by George Mitchell ; the early riff of jazz was born. In Kansas City , jazz bands often played riff-oriented. Here Benny Moten built riffs into his blues-oriented jazz with Toby (December 13, 1932), from which Benny Goodman took over the idea of ​​the riff in New York . Goodmann's Bugle Call Rag with a clarinet riff (August 16, 1934) is striking . Count Basie's Swinging the Blues (February 16, 1938) contains a two-bar riff, while Basie's One O'Clock Jump (July 7, 1937) and Charlie Parker's Cool Blues (February 19, 1947) contain a four- bar riff .

Shape and properties

While in classical music a riff was largely intoned by string sections, guitars , saxophones , keyboards or brass sections are mostly responsible for riffs in jazz, blues , rock and roll and pop music . A frequently repeated bass figure (“basso ostinato”; stubborn bass) is typical in rock music ; in soul music and disco , riffs are reduced to two or one-bar motifs. Striking and memorable, often simply structured riffs in rock music are already presented in the intro ( Whole Lotta Love , Smoke on the Water ). In arrangements for big bands , the riff is often presented in unison . Riffs in the blues-related styles such as blues-rock and hard-rock and also in metal are particularly popular . There they are usually one, two, four or more bars long and consist of single tones or two chords (often open fifths ), which are called power chords in rock and pop music .

Tension is created by the fact that the seeming monotony of the often repeated riff is canceled by harmonic changes. In jazz, the riff has to be separated from the improvisations of the melody group because they usually do not play repetitive phrases. A riff is always a thematic component that is rhythmically oriented, but in no way reveals the rhythm of a piece of music. This makes the rhythmic function of the riff clear, which is also expressed in Holmes; for him a "jazz riff is a constantly repeated melodic medium with a main rhythm function". While riffs used to be played in the background, they came to the fore of intonation during the swing era .

In many cases, the riff is played by the lead guitar ( Smoke on the Water ), the bass guitar ( Another One Bites the Dust , Queen ), or both ( Day Tripper ). In soul , the horns often take over the riff ( I Feel Good also known as I Got You by James Brown ). Rarely do you hear a riff with keyboards ( Jump by Van Halen or The Final Countdown by Europe ). A good riff is - beyond all theoretical considerations - always characterized by its "immediacy", which pulls the listener under its spell.

The riff has to be differentiated from the ostinate accompanying rhythm , which is based on decreasing melodic differentiation and constant repetition. The ostinate accompaniment rhythm is used to accompany the singing voice and has no independence like riffs. Examples of riffs that are used to accompany the singing voice are I Feel Fine and Day Tripper by The Beatles , Come as You Are by Nirvana , Hash Pipe by Weezer or Whatever You Want by Status Quo .

Examples

Riff from Come as You Are by Nirvana

A purely instrumental riff is often built into a piece as an intro or transition between verse and chorus . Well-known examples are:

See also

literature

  • Hannes Fricke: The guitar myth: history, performers, great moments. Reclam, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-15-020279-1 , pp. 20-25.

Web links

Commons : Riffs  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Riff on dictionary.com, accessed August 18, 2017.
  2. ^ Collins English Dictionary 2010.
  3. ↑ Riff, der oder das on duden.de, accessed on August 18, 2017.
  4. ↑ Roxicon: reef .
  5. ↑ Mervin Cook / David Horn (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Jazz , 2002, p. 117.
  6. ^ Gunther Schuller, Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development , 1986, p. 29.
  7. ↑ Jakob Brzozowski, Jazz-Rock, overview and commercializations , 2011, p. 11.
  8. ^ Hannes Fricke: Myth guitar: history, interpreters, great hours. Reclam, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-15-020279-1 , p. 21.
  9. ↑ Jürgen Wölfer, Lexikon des Jazz , 1993, p. 424 f.
  10. ↑ John Clellon Holmes, The Horn , 1958, p 105
  11. ^ Gunther Schuller, Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development , 1986, p. 48.
  12. ↑ Werner Breig (Ed.), Analyzes: Contributions to the Problem History of Composing , 1984, p. 309.