Daily Riff
There is a new riff every day. It comes from the date, so every guitarist gets the same riff on the same day. You see the key, tempo, technique and difficulty, get the tab and can play the riff with drums. If you practise it, the session goes in your practice log and the streak grows. Earlier days stay in the archive.
How to use it
- Read the key, tempo and difficulty. Press Play to hear the riff, with drums if you like.
- Follow the tab and practise the riff slowly. Raise the tempo when it sits.
- Press Practice this riff to log the session. The streak counts days in a row on which you practised the daily riff.
- Missed a day? Browse back in the archive. Forward is not possible, the future has not been played yet.
How is the daily riff made?
The daily riff is a riff generated from the UTC date, so every guitarist gets the same riff on the same day. The date becomes the seed of a random generator with a fixed outcome. No server and no account are needed, and the riff cannot be changed afterwards.
The seed decides key, scale, tuning, technique, tempo and difficulty. The scale is usually natural minor, but harmonic minor, Phrygian, Dorian, Phrygian dominant and minor pentatonic also occur. The tuning is E Standard, D Standard, Drop D or Drop C. The tempo is between 90 and 210 BPM in steps of five.
The riff is four bars long. Sometimes it is harmonised with a second voice. The riff number counts from 1 October 2026, which is riff number one.
The techniques: chug, gallop, tremolo and melodic
The technique decides how the riff should be played. The tool uses five: chug, gallop, tremolo, melodic and mixed.
- Chug: short palm-muted hits on low strings. Trains timing and muting.
- Gallop: an eighth note followed by two sixteenth notes, like a horse. Trains downstrokes with an even hand.
- Tremolo: fast picking on one note. Trains stamina in the picking hand.
- Melodic: a motif moving across the scale, often in harmony. Trains fingering and clean shifts.
- Mixed: several techniques in the same riff, as in a real song.
How to practise a daily riff
Regularity beats length: ten minutes every day gives more than one long weekend session. Start slowly and raise the tempo only when the riff is clean.
- Read key, tempo and difficulty and play the riff once to hear it.
- Practice bar by bar at about 60 percent of the target tempo with the metronome.
- Raise the tempo by five BPM at a time, and go back if it starts to get sloppy.
- Play the whole riff against the drums and press Practice this riff to log the session.
- Missed days are in the archive. The streak counts only consecutive days.
Frequently asked questions
Does everyone get the same riff on the same day?
Yes. The riff is calculated from the date in UTC, without a server. Two guitarists on opposite sides of the world see the same riff, and it cannot be changed afterwards.
When does the next riff arrive?
At midnight UTC. That is 01:00 or 02:00 in Sweden depending on daylight saving time.
How is the streak counted?
Each time you press Practice this riff, a session is saved in your practice log. The streak is the number of days in a row with such a session, counted in your own time zone. Everything stays local in your browser.
How hard is the daily riff?
Difficulty is shown on a scale from 1 to 10 and is calculated from the tempo and the riff's own difficulty level. A slow chug riff ends up low and a fast tremolo riff high. Start at the lower level and work upward.
Related tools
- Riff Generator: Create a new guitar riff in any key, scale and tuning, with tab and playback.
- Speed trainer: Raise the tempo step by step, with timed rounds or clean repetitions.
- Practice Log: Log sessions, follow your tempo and see how you improve.
- Brutality Meter: Measure how brutal a riff is, with sub-scores for tremolo, chugs, dissonance and melody. Unscientific but honest.
- Gothenburg Compliance Test: Test whether a riff follows the rules of melodic death metal: twin harmony, minor key, pedal tone and sequence.
- Riff Weather: Tonight's riff forecast: key, weather and the chance of harmonised guitars, with a playable forecast riff.