Joe Bonamassa demonstrates how to enhance the heaviness of your riffs.]

I recently got back off the road with my band Black Country Communion, which features Jason Bonham on drums, Glenn Hughes on bass and vocals – the “Voice of Rock!”– and the master of the keyboards, Derek Sherinian.

The conversation came up about the difference between what I do in my “day job” with my regular band versus when playing and writing for Black Country Communion. BCC is a “heavy” band; the songs are in a hard rock style, as opposed to the bluesier context of my normal band. Much of the difference, guitar playing-wise, comes down to the approach.

Contrary to what one might assume, with the heavier music and chordal work with this band, I don’t need tons of gain on my guitar because everyone else is distorted!

A good example of this is the song One Last Soul. Figure 1 is played along the lines of the tune’s main riff, which is built primarily from power chords played on the bottom three strings in drop-D tuning (low to high: D, A, D, G, B, E).

In the realm of “heavy rock” guitar, I was very influenced by Paul Kossoff’s sound and playing with the band Free.

Figure 2 offers an example of this that moves through a series of chord voicings sounded on the middle four strings, shifting between A5, D/A, G5/A and Dsus4/A voicings in a manner akin to how Kossoff would craft his rhythm parts.

As you can see, just moving one note in the voicing “tells the story” as I move from chord to chord. I’ve discovered that the music will sound heavier and deeper if I scale back the voicings.

(Image credit: Future)

Leslie West’s riffs with Mountain, which are some of the heaviest ever, were often either single-note lines or two- and three-note chord voicings.

gwm598 Joe Bonamassa Lesson

(Image credit: Future)

Figures 3 and 4 offer two examples of riffs played in Leslie’s inimitable style, exemplified by Mountain classics like Never in My Life and Nantucket Sleighride.

gwm598 Joe Bonamassa Lesson — (Image credit: Future)

All of these types of chord voicings are really important in making the band sound a certain way. When writing this kind of music, I try to subtract from the chord voicings and eliminate any unneeded notes.

As shown in Figure 5, I mute the 3rd string when playing a low E5 chord, and also mute the 5th string on D/F# and Gsus2. You’ll find that your riffs can sound heavier if you approach your guitar parts from this point of view.