Guitar Lick "Sextuplet Sequence"

This guitar lick is a sequence of alternate picked sextuplets (that is 6 notes per beat). To really benefit from this exercise you should start slowly with a metronome and gradually increase speed. In the video there is  a bit of extraneous string noise -  pluggin my guitar directly into the computer seems to exacerbate this issue along with my  high action. That or I need a few good days in the woodshed! Have fun and feel free to post your own version of the lick as a response.

"Spider Dance" Guitar Lick

I came up with this lick while practicing an exercise from Matt Hale's "Art of Motion" from Shred Academy. I call this lick "Spider Dance" because it will have your fretting hand dancing all over the fretboard.This lick uses some ususual intervals and wider stretches on the neck. Take it slow and remember always stop immediately if you feel any pain and never play through pain. Warm up thouroughly before playing anything new or difficult. The guitar lick begins with a sequence of triplets starting with an octave pattern and then moves to a section based around eighth notes that incorporates some open strings.

Posting the next couple licks early to get some much needed guitar practice in. Im trying to learn "Muffin Man" by Frank Zappa and it is a real challenge to say the least. If you have never heard it check it out.

E Mixolydian Mode Guitar Lick

This guitar lick is based around notes from the E Mixolydian scale and uses primarily an alternate picked 16th note rhythm.

Cross Picking Guitar Exercise

A cross picking  guitar exercise in the key of G  I came up with when messing around on an acoustic. Use alternate picking throughout. Start on a downstroke. Have fun.

Triplet Walk of Doom Pt.2

This is the second part to a little guitar exercise I like to call the "Triplet Walk of Doom". Ok. It is Friday and I cheated a little bit and did not use strict alternate picking on the first example. The video and tab are in standard tuning but Double Drop D so both E strings high and low are tuned to D down from the standard E.  Have a great and musical weekend.

Fun with Fifths - Guitar Lick of the Day

I came up with this guitar lick by messing around with fifth intervals. It was inspired by a cool lesson I saw with Scott Henderson. Fifths are a staple in modern rock, blues, jazz and classical music. This interval sounds so good we even call it perfect.I use alternate picking throughout and some palm muting to keep the extraneous noise from the distortion down. Any questions or comments fire away. Enjoy the video and tab. Cheers.

Triplet Walk of Doom Part 1

A little practice exercise today I call the  "Triplet Walk of Doom". This is part one that ascends the neck. It is simply a chromatic triplet pattern using alternate picking. I just wrote this today so I have some distance to go myself with the BPM. The nice thing about this exercise is that it can be used by beginner and  more advanced players to work on their alternate picking and string skipping. At higher tempos it can be challenging to execute properly and beginners will get a real workout from navigating the string skips and maintaning consistent alternating up and down strokes with the guitar pick. Uses Double Drop D Standard Tuning

Have a great and musical weekend.

"Shamrock Girl" Guitar Lick

A little Irish for you on this Saint Patrick's Day. I wrote a little guitar piece (today I still need to polish it) called "Shamrock Girl". I named it this because it is in Double Drop D standard tuning so it is after Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl". Hope you have fun playing around with it. Check out the tab below  and listen to the video for some rhythmic twists. It can be a bit of a fingerboard tap dance at times.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

A Phaserrific Tapping Lick

A tapping lick with a phaser effect over the same music from our last example. The musical piece called "Tranquility Base" is pretty atmospheric sounding to me so I added a phaser to the mix and choose some "outside" sounding notes to go for a space kinda vibe.

backing music by kmacleod www.incompetech.com used with permission.

An Exotic Backing Track Guitar Lick

I found some cool new music that I have permission to use as backing tracks. The backing track in the clip was from kmacleod at www.incompetech.com. It is a piece called "Tranquility Base".  Backing music used with permission. I was shooting for an exotic sounding  guitar lick. I think this one fits the piece and hope you like it. I enjoyed this piece of music and may play around with a few crazier effects and see if I can come up with a few more licks that work over it.

Lets Go for 1000

A quick update. I've got some great new guitar licks lined up for March, 2010 but a back injury sidelined my first weeks plans. I should be back to playing and recording soon. In the meantime I'll use the downtime to write new material. I also wanted to encourage anyone who likes the site or guitar licks and lessons to subscribe to my youtube channel. I'm getting close to 1000 subscribers and think it would be a cool milestone to hit. Thanks to everyone I've already surpassed 1 million total views. So check out my channel and please subscribe. Cheers,
www.youtube.com/videoguitarlessons