Scale Climbing Guitar Lick

This guitar lick uses a pattern ascending the A Minor Pentatonic Scale. Each note is picked twice. The pattern is up four and back two. Try using this pattern for each of the Five Pentatonic Scale patterns and work out the scale sequence on the guitar neck up and down the whole scale pattern. Practice this guitar lick with a metronome and using an alternate picking pattern with an eighth or 16th note rhythm.

Blues Guitar Lick in C

A blues guitar lick in C with a wah wah.The backing track is from Pete Anderson
called "Slow Blues". It is one of his contributions to the blues guitar backing tracks for the King of The Blues Competition. Used with permission. You can download the backing track and chord progression here: http://gc.guitarcenter.com/kingoftheblues/tracks/

To hear some of Pete's great blues guitar playing check out his
website:http://www.peteanderson.com/
Thanks to Pete for letting me
use this great track.

A Happy Guitar Lick in E Major

Just messing around with the E Major scale and came up with a little
guitar lick that made me happy and was fun to play so here it is.

*NOTE: I posted the guitar licks early this week
so this is under the Feb23 blog post. Just labelled
like this to keep the files straight.

Rock Inspired Jazz Guitar Lick

Musical inspiration can come from many sources. Different genres of music can inspire guitarists to create music in many different forms. I really love the guitar playing of both Skid Row guitarists. I was recently learning a great song of theirs called "Wasted Time". In the solo there is a really cool run from I believe a C5 to and Ab5 chord. It sounds great and resolves to the Ab note. It is a guitar lick that would not be out of place in a jazz song - to my ears anyway. In any case that guitar lick inspired this one. It is in the key of C but incorporates some passing tones. You'll note on the youtube video I've labelled the last couple of guitar licks for days from Feb21 to Feb24 - they are all under the 21st as I decided to post them early. If you enjoy excellent melodic rock guitar check out the song and see if you can spot the guitar lick that inspired this one!

Neo Classical Guitar Lick in A Minor

Here is a guitar lick in a neo-classical style using the A minor scale. The backing track uses the guitar riff we looked at in the last post and drums are courtesy of Sonoma Wireworks Riffworks InstantDrummer.

80's Metal Guitar Riff

Today's we look at a guitar riff  based firmly in the 80's metal style. Experiment with various degrees of palm muting and distortion. This guitar riff is based around a power chord progression from A to C to G. The run after the A5 power chord uses hammer on and pull offs and incorporates open strings.

Wah Guitar Lick in A Minor

Here is a pretty basic yet cool sounding ( i think anyway) wah infused guitar lick based around the A Minor Pentatonic Scale. Use the tab as an approximate rhythmic guide but listen to the video for the phrasing - or better yet play around with the notes make up alterations by changing up the phrasing.

Guitar Lick Drop D Tuning - Down 1 and 1/2 Steps

Another drop tuning guitar lick/riff. Tuning from low to high is:
B F# B E G# C#. Here are the guitar tab and video.

Some 80's guitar Inspiration

I've always loved the 80's classic "Jessie's Girl" from Rick Springfield. I think its a great song with some cool riffs, a strong solo and it has really stood the test of time. I decided to learn it today which was a lot of fun. The guitar and bass open with a set of notes that follow the root of the underlying chord which is a simple but effective introduction.It makes the chords sound a lots fuller when they kick into gear.  The rhythm is simple but memorable.

Today's tinylick is a example of a repeating guitar line that could be doubled with a bass. It is played using an eighth note rhythm. Most of the notes are grouped in threes except for the B note on the fifth string second fret. I've divided the notes in the guitar tab so they are easier to see but play this evenly with an eighth note rhythm and some palm muting.

Drop D Tuning Down 1 and 1/2 Steps

I've always loved guitar magazines. I've kept almost every one I've ever bought with the exception of a few that I gave to friends or students. I love going back through old issues of Guitar World, Guitar Player, Guitar School and Guitar for the Practicing Musician. They are a great source of inspiration and a fun way to come up with new musical ideas. I was  checking out an old issue of Guitar World with Zakk Wylde's boot camp in it July 2004. There is a song in this issue by Drowning Pool called "Step Up". I was playing around with the song. It is in a drop D version of a tuning made famous by Black Sabbath's  Tony Iommi. Basically you tune down one and a half steps and then drop the low E to match the D string which are both now tuned down to B. The tuning from low to high is B, F#, B, E, G#, C#. Anyway I was messing around with this and came up with a simple but I think cool sounding guitar lick. So here is the guitar tab and video to check out: