Beginner Jazz Guitar Lick C Major Scale

Today's guitar lick is a beginner jazz guitar lick using the C Major Scale. The lick is played with a swing rhythm and pay careful attention to the placement of the rests. Try playing this over different chords in the C Major Scale family and see how the chord harmony changes the feel of the lick. For starters try Dmin7,G7 and Cmaj7 chords.

Minor 7 Apreggio and Major Scale Guitar Lick

This is a lick from my song " Tin Whisper". You can hear it at www.soundclick.com/adave

The guitar lick begins with a DMin7 arpeggio and draw on notes from the C Major Scale. When you get the feel for this lick and get it under your fingers try expanding it by using other arpeggio shapes within the C Major scale and see what you can create. Arpeggios provide a great spring board for other ideas on the guitar.

Whole Diminished Scale Guitar Lick

Today's lick is using the D Whole Diminished Scale. The note for this scale are D E F G# A# B C# D. I used a technique where you substitute the scale for the alphabet and write out a phrase and then play that phrase on guitar. I read about this in a recent post at Guitar Player magazines website which attributed the technique to Pat Martino. Bonus points if anyone figures out what I played on guitar and translates it back into words.

Drop C Metal Guitar Riff

I decided to give the Epiphone Lp100 humbuckers a work out and see how they felt with some serious distortion from the good old Line6 Pocket Pod. These are still the factory strings but I'm gonna try the riff again when I get my new Dunlop Zakk Wylde 10-60 set on and time permitting I'll try to get another post up for comparison.

So this again is more of a riff than lick although there is some single note action going on too. The guitar is tuned 6th string drop C and the remaining strings are down a whole step.

Toggle Switch Effect

Today's guitar lick is a fun one.Toggle switches are really new to me because until recently I've only ever played strat style guitars. When I got my new Epiphone LP100 I got a chance to mess around with the toggle switch that selects pickups. With this guitar I turned off the volume to the neck pickup so I could create some interesting sounds my manipulating the switch at different rhythms. I've heard these switches can be fragile so take it easy and use your own discretion when trying this. You do this at your own risk and agree not to hold me responsible in any way.

Volume swell guitar lick

This is a really fun effect you can use by itself or with delay as in this example. It is easier on strats. I'm tuned down a half step if you want to play along. In the video there is a right hand view so you can see how I use my pinky to wrap around the volume control. Experiment with rolling the volume knob back to different degrees to alter the amount of volume change on the guitar. This guitar lick is just a little example so if you like the sound I'd encourage you to experiment with you own licks and see what kind of music you can create with this. A great example of a neo-classical style use of this was Ynqwie Malmsteen's "echo etude" on his awesome instructional video put out by REH.

Major Pentatonic Scale Guitar Lick #3

Ok tuesday's guitar lick is here well in my time zone anyway. It's the third D Major Pentatonic scale guitar lick we've looked at in response to a guitar player's request. This is a rock guitar lick that uses double picking. That is each note of the main sequence is picked twice. Try a fair amount of palm muting for a chunky rock guitar rhythm sound. The lick resolves to the major third of the scale which is an F#.

D Major Pentatonic Scale Guitar Lick#2

Here is another guitar lick using the D Major Pentatonic scale. The lick is presented at regular then slow speed to help learn and follow along with the tab and or standard notation. The lick uses slides and hammer on and pull offs and resolves to the major third with a bend from the E note to the F# note on the 14th fret of the guitar's high E string.

afew improv guitar tunes.

I hope everyone had a good Easter. I'm working on today's guitar lick and it will be posted soon. I've been trying to create more orignal music lately and for anyone who is interested you can check out a few of my guitar improvisations at www.soundclick.com/adave one is a jazz guitar improv the other is an instrumental I've tentatively placed in the film music genre. Anyway check then out and let me know what you think. Cheers. Another D Major Pentatonic Lick is scheduled for later today.

Major Pentatonic Scale Guitar Lick

I had a request for some guitar licks using the D Major Pentatonic scale so the next few entries will focus on licks using that scale. I'll try to focus on afew different genres of music to demonstrate how flexible the use of the scale can be. This example is a basic country style lick that is pretty easy to play with a bit of practice. It uses slides and hammer on and pull offs. Try alternating both the speed and phrasing and see what licks you can create yourself using similar patterns on the guitar.

Alternate Picking Practice

Here's a cool sounding palm muted rock guitar lick that can also make a great alternate picking exercise.

Rock Guitar Tapping Lick

This is a rock guitar lick that uses a repeating tapped sequence. I don't do very much tapping so feel free to disregard my technique and use this lick as a springboard for your own ideas.

Middle Eastern Sounding Guitar Lick

Here's a guitar lick with a middle eastern sound to it.

Chordal Rock Guitar Lick

This is a chordal rock guitar lick / riff that descends from C to A while droning the D and G notes. I think it sounds pretty cool and its pretty easy to play. Hope you dig it.

Jazz Blues Guitar Turnaround

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! Today's lick has nothing to do with being Irish but I think it is still pretty cool. The guitar lick today is a jazz blues turnaround over the five chord B. The lick begins with some chordal ideas and resolves to the flat (dominant) seventh A.
Hope you dig it.

Blues Guitar Licks in A

Got a bit behind in the last couple days so today here are two blues guitar licks in A for you to try. Both in standard tuning. Trying out my new Epiphone Les Paul - 100 though the pocket pod. Try altering the tempo and phrasing of the notes on the guitar and see how it changes the feel of the lick.

Blues Guitar Pedal Point Lick

Here's a blues guitar lick using triplets and a repeating pedal point.

Rock Guitar Lick

Here's a simple but effective rock guitar lick the uses multiple string bending and the good old C#7#9 chord.

Jazz (ish) guitar chromatic lick

This is a chromatic guitar lick that is a bit jazz and a bit blues.

Twilight March Guitar Lesson

I liked tommorrow's riff so much I had to post it now. Hope you enjoy it too. Planning to incorporate this into my song "Twilight March" discussed int he last post.
Cheers.

Guitar Lesson - Intro to Twilight March

Ok I'm working on a new song inspired by some Death Metal I was checking out recently. This is the guitar lesson for the intro to a song called "twilight march" I'm working on. The thing about the Death Metal genre that strikes me as interesting is how relatively unaccented playing can still bring out emotion with good note choice. I'm no expert in death metal but the song examples I've heard generally don't incorporate as much bending or vibrato as a blues or classic rock song for example. So this is an example of that style of guitar playing. The audio is with guitar only and recorded simply through a webcam for demonstration purposes. My plan is a add some synth tracks to outline the chord changes.

Metal Guitar Riff in Drop D

I just came up with this guitar lick and figured I'd post the lick for Sunday today. This guitar lick is a mini metal guitar lesson on riffing and palm muting. The riff uses all down strokes for the eighth notes and alternate picks the 16th notes. Palm muting varies from quite heavy to light. Try alternating the pressure you use and see how it affects the sound. I used the Line6 Pocket pod insane setting for a wee bit o distortion.

To help follow along with the tab I've slowed down the second example in the video. The guitar in today's video is tuned down a half step but with the 6th string tuned down another whole step to D flat. This is typically just called drop D down a half step. I kinda liked this riff and hope you enjoy it too. Cheers.

Beginner Rock Guitar Lick

Today's guitar lick is a beginner rock guitar lick that uses a pedal point open D string and palm muting with a primarily eighth note lick. Special thanks to www.bluesblast.com for permission to us the backing track. Ok here's the tab so you can follow along with the video. Guitar as usual is tuned down a half step. Cheers.

Beginner Rock Guitar Lick

Here's a beginner rock guitar lick that uses octaves.

Jazz Guitar Lick

Ok first please note I am not a jazz guitar player. This lick is very basic if rated against a formal jazz player. I consider this an intermediate lick for a non jazz rock guitar player who just wants to learn a few chromatic jazz style licks. Learning jazz guitar properly is beyond my expertise and takes a lot of dedicated practice.

Classic Rock n Roll Guitar

Here's a guitar lick that's a throw back to classic rock n roll. It's a pretty quick tempo but intermediate players should find the difficulty level is pretty manageable. If you have any trouble breaking down the tab let me know and I can post a slower video or answer any questions about the guitar playing.

Blues Guitar Lick with Octaves

Today's little guitar lesson looks at the use of octaves in a 12 bar blues. The lick uses a repeating octave sequence in D# Major mixed with a single note line. I've included a little bit of an extended jam to give you a glimpse of how you might incorporate this lick into a blues guitar solo. Hope you enjoy it. The backing track in this example was used with permission and is courtesy of www.bluesblast.com.

Classic Rock Guitar Lick

The guitar lick for today is a classic rock lick using unision bends. THis lick is centered around the C# Minor Pentatonic Scale.

Mixolydian Mode Blues Lick

Here's a blues guitar lick using the D# Mixolydian Mode. This scale has a flat seventh which works well over dominant seventh chords and has a much bluesier, sad feel than the major seventh in the ionian mode or standard major scale.

I've played the lick over the backing track with a couple of variations on phrasing and speed. Hope you like it. Any questions, comments let me know. Cheers.

Slow Jazz Guitar Lick

This is a slow jazzy guitar lick. I'm not a trained jazz musician but I thought this was a cool sounding lick to share.