Drop D Guitar Riff

Guitar riffs don't always have to be difficult to sound cool. This guitar riff is pretty basic. I am tuned down to drop D if you want to play along. The main part of this guitar riff only uses three notes with a chromatic walk down at the end. I will be looking at some solo ideas over this progression later on my website www.getintoguitar.com if your interested.

Questions, comments requests? Let me know on twitter @jimifan

*note in the tab I repeat the section without the walk down three times I forgot to notate that in tab and music notation.

Chromatic Country Guitar Lick

Today we look at a chromatic country guitar lick in the key of G. The lick uses open strings and pull-offs and is centered around a 16th note rhythm pattern. Practice this slowly with a metronome before you try playing it up to tempo and beyond. I've including a slowed down section in the video.

Any questions let me know on twitter @jimifan

Melodic Guitar Lick in the Key of D

I don't know a lot about Ed Sheeran. He seems like a nice guy though and I like that. I do love his song "Thinking Out Loud". I decided to learn it after it was tabbed out in a recent issue of Guitar World magazine - August 2015 if your looking for it. As millions of people already know it is a really great song. It is really fun to play on guitar and has some nice rhythmic phrasing if you want to practice muting on an acoustic guitar in a strumming pattern.

The chord progression for the main part breaks down to basically a simple I IV V change using D G and A major. This progression is the basis for thousands of songs. After I learned the song I wanted to try and come up with a melodic lick over a similar progression. The guitar lick itself is pretty easy but I like the way it sounds. I threw in a few improvised licks in between. Here is the tab for the main lick:

Fusion Guitar Lick

A break from the vinyl inspired guitar licks today. I was messing around with a chord progression and came up with this fusion sounding guitar lick.It is based around the E Major scale.

The chord progression is based around these chords.

 Here is the tab for the guitar lick.

Vinyl Guitar Lick - Pink Floyd - A Momentary Lapse of Reason

Today's guitar lick was inspired by the Pink Floyd song 'On the Turning Away' I drew inspiration from the great solo Gilmour plays on this track with his iconic blues rock tone.

The chord progression goes Em|C|Em|C|D|C|Em The lead guitar lick is based around the E Minor Scale.

Vinyl Guitar Licks - Def Leppard - Hysteria

Today's guitar lick is inspired by the great Def Leppard album 'Hysteria'.  This was a favourite of mine when it was released and it still sounds great today. The production on this album is amazing and it has a huge sound that is still clear and clean thanks to producer extraordinaire Mutt Lange. Guitarists Steve Clark (RIP) and Phil Collen have a great interplay and both sound fantastic.

I was inspired today by the song 'Love Bites'. I tired to come up with a lead melodic guitar part  played over a moving chord progression. The chord progression I used was:

G5  |  Eb5  |  C5 |  Bb5 C5 |

Here is the guitar tab for the lead part. In the video I played the tab as written a couple of times then just jammed over the progression.

Vinyl Guitar Licks - Leo Kottke - Greenhouse

Our guitar lick today is inspired by the album 'Greenhouse' by Leo Kottke. I really don't know a lot about this guitarist. I know he plays some mean finger-style  acoustic guitar and incorporates a lot of different musical genres into his playing. I tried to come up with a funky yet folksy  riff. I'll let you decide how well I did that. I couldn't find the album on Spotify but I was inspired by the funky riff on 'Bean Time'.

I did not spend a lot of time getting the  standard notation in the tab exact so please listen to the video to get the rhythm down. Here is the guitar tab. I'm a very novice finger-style player and prefer a pick most of the time but this is my attempt.

Again please note I did not tab out the rhythm parts in standard notation generally I let the notes ring longer than the eighth note duration indicated especially in the second part.

Vinyl Guitar Licks - John McLaughlin - Music Spoken Here

John McLaughlin's 'Music Spoken Here' is the album that inspired today's guitar lick. I choose to focus on the song 'Loro'. I am not remotely in the same guitar playing league but I tried to come up with an acoustic guitar lick that captured some of the upbeat spirit this song has.  Here is a link to today's song.

I went for an uptempo acoustic guitar lick with a bit of a latin tinge to my ears anyway. Here is the guitar tab.

The guitar starts off with a  wide interval part and then a 16th note scale sequence. The phrasing in the second part is a bit tricky but I think it sounds pretty cool. The third part is quarter note triplets shifting around some chord shapes. In terms of a key signature I'm thinking in E but haven't really analysed things.

Vinyl Guitar Licks - MSG - Built To Destroy

Michael Schenker is a great guitar player that had and continues to have a huge influence over guitarists.  Today's guitar lick is inspired by the open string intro riff to the song 'Captain Nemo'. I couldn't find the exact album on Spotify but here is a link to the song on a compilation.

My guitar lick is certainly a lot slower in tempo but it does incorporate a lot of open strings. I mixed in a simple guitar rhythm of the E, D and C power chords between the guitar licks. The guitar lick has two parts. The first part has two minor variations. The second part is played entirely on the G string. I didn't really think out scale choices I just played notes that sounded good to me. Hope you dig the riff here is the guitar tab. For a modern player who comes up with some wicked open string licks I would check out Slash.

Vinyl Guitar Licks - Johnny Winter

Today's guitar lick is inspired by the self titled 1969 album from Johnny Winter. It has Stevie Ray Vaughan's bass player Tommy Shannon on it as well. I drew inspiration from the song 'Good Morning Little School Girl'. I went for a cleaner blues tone and stuck to the B Minor Pentatonic Scale. The beat on the song is a straight ahead rock and roll rhythm.

Here is the guitar tab.

Vinyl Guitar Licks - Queen News of the World

The record that inspired today's guitar lick is Queen's 'News of the World'. This is a 1977 classic that includes the hits 'We Will Rock You' and 'We are the Champions'. I took inspiration from the first song 'We Will Rock You'. The tracks guitar solo kicks in at around 1:40. Here is a link to the song. The first things that strikes me is the thick rich tone Brian May gets out of his now famous home made guitar. The solo kicks of with some power chords and then kicks into a great melodic section.

I tried to come up with a combination of a riff and solo part that work together. I tried to create a thick chord sound. The first part of the guitar lick starts with a triplet walk up the scale that reminds me of Queen after that its more of a blues rock feel. But hey the goal of this is to kick start some creativity.  The main riff I played in open position with the chords F# D and A. For the lead I doubled the chords in a higher position and played around with the A Major/ F#Minor scale. The guitar tab ends with the repeating lick on the second fret. If you want the legato part at the end tabbed out let me know.

My Record Collection and the Guitar Licks it Inspired

Recently we had another record store day. That got me thinking about my Vinyl collection. I have been meaning to catalogue it for some time and was going to set up a blog to do that. I thought it may be even cooler to post a record and then a guitar lick inspired by each record. That way I get more regular guitar licks on the site and get to share my vinyl collection too. I have a pretty eclectic collection so be prepared for some odd records and probably odder guitar licks. If you see a record you dig let me know and I can post another guitar tab inspired by it. I'd love to hear from you if you come up with guitar licks inspired by the records posted too. Please let me know if you do.

Just a few points the records will be in no particular order. I recently had a flood and now all my records are sitting next to me in my jam room so I'll literally pick up each one in the pile as they come. If the piece is on Spotify I'll try to include a link so you can reference the music I am talking about. My inspiration may be from a particular song, technique, guitarist, title or even cover art. Remember the great album covers pre CD?

If you think this idea is interesting please comment, share or tweet this. I appreciate the feedback and knowing people have some interest makes creating content more enjoyable.

So first album in the pile is?  Eric Clapton "Just one Night". This album was recorded live at the famous Budokan Theatre in Toyko in December of 1979 and released in 1980. I choose to listen to the song "Worried Life Blues". Clapton's version had a very BB King style sound to me. I tabbed out a guitar lick that would work over the turnaround. Please note I'm tuned down a half step if you want to play along with my video. Here is the song:

Worried Life Blues

And here is the guitar tab for my lick:

Fusion Guitar Lick

I'm not a fusion player but this guitar lick kinda fit over a progression I would call fusion. If you want the backing track and a breakdown of the chord progression please see my new website Get Into Guitar

This guitar lick was inspired by a warm-up lick by Geoff Unger in a column at Guitar World. You can find this article here. http://www.guitarworld.com/fretboard-mechanics-beyond-warming-important

The guitar lick is based around the C Major scale and uses legato for a smooth flowing feel. Hope you dig it. Thanks for listening.

Here is the tab for this guitar lick.

Another last minute guitar contest

Another guitar contest entry down to the wire. This time it is from Jam track central. Here is the link https://jamtrackcentral.com/jtcguitarsolocontest2015/info/

They gave you a variety of backing tracks in various genres. I was most a home in the blues so I choose that one for my entry but I also posted an outtake from the funk track too because it was fun to play over.

Here's my entry. There is just about 15 hours left so you still have time to enter. Have fun.

And here is the funky track I didn't enter:

Jim Oblon Video Challenge

I've always found guitar contests especially online ones are a great motivator. This one closes to entries very soon but even if you don't entry you can jam over the backing tracks and vote for your favourite entries. Here is my entry. Detail on the contest, sample tracks and the backing tracks can be found here. http://www.epiphone.com/Contests/2015/Jim-Oblon-Video-Challenge.aspx




Ok just read the rules and realized I've gotta play my Epi so here is another take over a different backing track. Cheers.