Linking Riffs Together

In today's lesson, we'll take a look at a collection of riffs and how to link them together in a melodic (yet heavy) way... One of the key elements when writing is to try to find a few riffs within the same key. In the following track, I chose to use F Lydian as a starting point. From there I decided to build something in A Aeolian which shares the same exact notes with F Lydian. The only difference between these two scales are their starting points.

In order to keep things moving, we'll modulate to an F Phrygian Dominant scale which is very often used in heavy progressive music. We'll end with a little whole step modulation to G Phrygian Dominant.

Make sure you are comfortable with the following scale diagrams before working on the actual riffs. Once you are comfortable with this lesson, you should try to write your own riffs using some of the ideas discussed here.

Have fun!

F Lydian / A Aeolian