"Day Tripper" Intro Riff

 

Lesson Goals:

♦ Learn proper fingering for the Intro Riff
♦ Understand why "each finger gets a fret"
♦ Practice single note picking

In this "exercise" we will learn the classic Intro Riff to "Day Tripper" by the Beatles. This one will expand your reach up the neck to the 4th fret and give you some good new material to work out.

First we need to discuss the "each finger gets a fret" rule. When playing lead lines in a particular position on the guitar neck, it is best to "assign" each finger to a fret in that position. In other words, any note played on any of the six strings on a particular fret should be played by the finger that is "assigned" to that fret. This greatly reduces excess finger movement and helps to speed your playing abilities.

Look at the picture on the right. In the example of "Day Tripper", all the notes that are played in this lick (other than the open string notes) take place on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th frets.

Notice in the picture that the best approach to this lick will be to "assign" the 1st finger to the notes on the 2nd fret, the 2nd finger to the notes on the 3rd fret, and the 3rd finger to the notes on the 4th fret.

Any notes that occur on the 2nd fret will be played by the first finger. Any notes that occur on the 3rd fret will be played by the  2nd finger. Any notes that occur on the 4th fret will be played by the 3rd finger.

NOTE: If there had been notes on the 5th fret in this example, they would have been played by the 4th finger.

Now let's take a look for the TAB on this lick.

Run through the fingering and get familiar with the notes and we can go over it step by step in the video.

BONUS: Once you are comfortable with the first part of the Intro Riff take a look at the second part (below). The fingering pattern is identical to the first part, only this time you will shift everything down one string and play the lick starting on the 5th string. Here is the TAB for the second part.