Introduction:
Black Sabbath - Paranoid. Black Sabbath, the fathers of heavy metal, Paranoid is one of there best known songs and has a pumping riff provided by Tony Iommi but spiced up by Geezer Butler via a bass roll.
Techniques:
The basic guitar riff is a simple E-E-D progression with a G-D-E flurry to match the vocal melody on the forth and final bar, nothing too impressive or particularly exciting but a good, solid bassline. The bass adds variety to this by following the guitar note for note but the last 4 8th notes of the 2nd bar make up a E-B-D-E bass roll which adds variety and character to the riff while staying within the C Major Scales boundaries. The way I reccomend you play this roll is to play the main riff using your middle finger and for the roll play all the 7s with your middle finger and the D at the 5th fret with your index finger.
Gear Info & Settings:
Geezer Butler used Ampeg and Marshall amps with EV Speakers, La Bella bass strings and Vigier, Status and Spector bass guitars for his punch yet traditional tone, most of this equpiment will be hard to find because the recording is old but he used old versions of the modern digitech pedals (chorus and overdrive and possibly a pitchshifter).
Audio & Tab:
180 bpm
G|:----------------- | ----------------- |
D| ----------------- | ----------------- |
A| -7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7- | -7-7-7-7-7---5-7- |
E|:----------------- | -----------7----- |
G| ----------------- | -----------------:|
D| ----------------- | -5--------------- |
A| -5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5- | ---5-----7------- |
E| ----------------- | -----------------:|
Click here to get a midi file of the tab above.
And don't forget to check out our current weekend riff UG Weekend Riff: Part 7. This week Geldof will teach you how to play Every Breath You Take riff by The Police!
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