Now onto the Riff Section which is played underneath the Drum solo. This is very much influenced by later Greg Howe and Wayne Krantz. Lots of syncopation (off the beat playing) and built from a few different harmonic areas.
The main idea is built from an F#m Pentatonic scale with some Dm Pentatonic ideas thrown in too. You'll find that you can build riffs off different pentatonics and the strong harmonic nature of the scale will allow you to create quite abstract sounding riffs whilst retaining a musical feel.
Something to be aware of is that this phrase was composed entirely by ear. I didn't purposefully combine these harmonic areas for any theoretical reason - it was simply what my ear heard and my brains interpretation of that. Sometimes that is the best way to compose!