Friday, February 27, 2009

Drop D down 1.5 Metal Guitar Triplet Lick


This is a triplet based metal guitar lick tuned in what I call "Slipknot tuning" because this band uses it a lot.Drop D Tuning down 1 and 1/2 steps. B,Gb,B,E,Ab,Dd.
I think this guitar lick sounds pretty cool but it doubles as a useful alternate picking exercise. You can also try economy picking exercises with this lick to take advantage of the direction of string changes. Have a rocking Friday!











Thursday, February 26, 2009

Ambient Guitar Lick


A pretty experimental style preset today so we have an equally experimental ambient guitar lick to match. This yields a nice spacey, deep layered kind of guitar sound which I think would work well as a base track and could be used to put a solo on top of it.





Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Guitar Lick - Alternate Picking Exercise


Today's guitar lick is a sextuplet based chromatic run that sounds cool and also makes a great alternate picking exercise if your looking to improve this technique. Start slowly with a metronome and incorporate this run into your practice schedule. Sextuplets are note groupings where there are 6 notes per beat are equally weighted. For an additional challenge and practice with precise picking you can try to accent certain notes within the sextuplet grouping. For more advanced guitar exercises involving accented notes check out Paul Gilbert's guitar video series or his various column in Guitar Magazines.





Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Guitar Lick - Lean and Clean


A simple chord based guitar lick/riff. I've always liked this style of lick. Try expanding the ideas here to another chord shape or pattern or see if you can move this around further to create other musical phrases.




Monday, February 23, 2009

Capo Guitar Lick


Been experimenting more with a capo lately so here is a guitar lick based around a chord shape that takes advantage of the wider intervals a capo can offer a guitar player. Using a capo is a great way to break out of a creative rut and come up with musical ideas that are different than your typical playing. A capo much like altered tuning forces you to approach your playing and note choice on the guitar from a different angle.






Friday, February 20, 2009

Wah Guitar Lick


Here's a funky little wah guitar lick that uses octaves and other intervallic diads for a cool sound.



Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Celtic Inspired Guitar Lick


Had a bit of a creative burst so I'm posting tomorrow's lick today. It's a celtic inspired guitar lick that incorporates lots of open string hammer on and pull off legato technique. It sounds good clean and crunchy so experiment with different guitar tones and try altering the phrasing to improvise around this riff.




Spider Crawl - Chromatic Bass Etude


Here's a chromatic etude for bass guitar I wrote called "spider crawl". Makes a great alternate picking exercise and can also be played on guitar. All 16th notes. There are places where I use economy picking so do not worry about absolute alternate picking if you find another technique works better. There are three versions in the video a rubato or free time version and two slower versions at 80 bpm and 110 bpm.






Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Funk Bass Lick


A funk bass lick based around the C# Minor Pentatonic scale. You can try doubling this on guitar or coming up with your own rhythm and lead to compliment this rhythm. You can also try to expand this rhythmic pattern to other chord shapes to extend the progression. This was inspired by Jimi Hendrix's "Crosstown Traffic" from the album Electric Ladyland which has a a killer bass line. On a side note there's a new lesson on the main web site Video Guitar Lessons covering the mixolydian mode in Modes101.




Monday, February 16, 2009

Funk Guitar Lick


Today's lick is a funk guitar lick using octave shapes and notes from the D Minor Pentatonic Scale. Have a funky monday!




Friday, February 13, 2009

E Minor Pentatonic Guitar Lick


A pretty basic rock guitar lick with a pretty unbasic ( my made up word of the day) effect. Made up primarily of notes from the E Minor Pentatonic scale which is a favorite of guitarists everywhere. Have a great weekend.





Thursday, February 12, 2009

A Minor Scale Run


Today's guitar lick is a basic descending minor scale run in the key of A that is played with alternate picking entirely on the E String. Note the left hand fingering I use. If your like me you will find this much easier to position shift this way. Cheers.






Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Rock Guitar Lick


A rock guitar lick based around the F# Minor Pentatonic Scale.


Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Guitar Lick - G Minor Pentatonic Scale


A jazz blues guitar lick using the G Minor Pentatonic Scale.




Monday, February 9, 2009

Bass Guitar Lick


Tried a bass guitar lick using major triads today. Try doubling this on guitar or playing another guitar lick over this. Cheers.




Friday, February 6, 2009

Funk Guitar Rhythm


A funk guitar rhythm I thought sounded good with this chord progression.
Have a great weekend.


Thursday, February 5, 2009

Guitar Lick using 6ths


Just a simple but cool sounding lick using 6th intervals on the guitar.




Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Guitar Lick - Trill


A guitar lick using a trill technique which for those unfamiliar with it is simply at rapid hammer on and pull off.



Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Guitar Lick - Moveable Patterns


Today's guitar lick is basically an alternate picked pattern that shift positions on the neck. Technique wise it makes for a good string crossing picking exercise to add to your guitar practice schedule and I also this it sounds pretty cool.



Monday, February 2, 2009

A Swell Guitar Lick


This is a guitar lick based around a D Minor Pentatonic Scale. The lick has a "swell" effect from the Line 6 Floor Pod Plus and some pretty heavy delay - just in case your wondering why the video may look a bit out of sync. Cheers.