Last year I had big fun deconstructing a handful of classic rock riffs, by turning them inside out, upside down, and every which way, in order to illustrate the mechanics of power chords. It was a great way to show how great riffs stand on their own, no matter how you slice them up, and it also facilitated a way to hint at music we usually don’t have access to, but the process also became very gamey. So, in the spirit of April Fools’ Day, here we go again.
The following well-known two-bar riffs have been sliced and diced beyond recognition, and the results are analogous to “word scrambles” and anagrams. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to decode and unscramble each notated riff along with its artist and title, both of which are presented as anagrams.
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GROUND RULES
1. All pitches and rhythms, including rests, from the original riff must remain intact, regardless of where they are repositioned in a measure.
2. All pitches must remain in the same octave as the original riff. (No octave displacement.)
3. All articulations and note ornaments from the original riff, such as hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides, and vibratos—must remain intact, although a hammer-on can reverse to a pull-off and vice versa.
4. All rhythms must add up to equal the same number of beats as those in the original riff.
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HOW TO PLAY THE GAME
We’ll illustrate the concept with two bars of “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” attributed to the Rolling Stones (!), first notated in Ex. 1a in its original form. (This would be the solution to the riff scramble.)
Ex. 1b