6 Metalcore Guitar Licks - Drop D Tuning

A reader recently requested some Metalcore guitar licks in Drop D tuning. Here is my best attempt at 6 guitar licks in this style. I don't listen to a lot of music in this style and freely admit I couldn't tell deathcore from hardcore or metalcore. I hope this is close to what the reader wanted.

Funk Guitar Lick

Here is a funk guitar lick to finish off the weekend. It is based in the key of E and uses a lot of the D note which is the flat 7th. The bends in the guitar tab are 1/4 note bends. Aim for a clean sound and experiment with using staccato on different notes. Also pay attention to muting. Keep the sound crisp and don't let notes ring out.

Guitar Buddy is Live

My guitar licks are now live in app form. Many of the guitar licks on this site are being used in the Guitar Buddy guitar app available free on itunes.  I don't own an iphone yet but this sounds like a great guitar learning tool for people who do. You can read more about the app and download it for free at itunes here:

Guitar Buddy on itunes

Open Guitar Chords with major scale run

I hope everyone had a Merry (and musical) Christmas. For those of you who found a guitar under the tree you may be wondering where to begin your music making journey. Most guitarists start with the open chords. Today's guitar lick is based around the open D and C add9 Major chords. The guitar lick is based on a repeating picking pattern you can see in the tab. The bass note changes from G to F to C with some hammer ons to spice up the lick a little bit. The lick ends with a major scale run based on the G Major scale.
A great way for any guitarist to learn some great open  based chord licks and guitar runs is to study bluegrass players. Bluegrass is great because a lot of the runs are based around open position chords and lower position scale patterns that beginners often start out with - but they can be very technical, fast and precise so advanced players learn a lot too.

World Guitar Lick

Today's guitar lick is a world guitar lick. It draws on rhytmic phrases typically found in so called world music. The tab is as close as I could get to the rhythm in the guitar video. Try creating your own phrasing with these notes and experiment with mixing these patterns to come up with your own musical lines.

Guitar Exercise - Cross Picking

Here is a guitar practice exercise that will help improve your alternate picking while crossing strings - called cross picking. Start slowly with a metronome. You can practice this guitar lick using a variety of rhythms. I would recommend triplets and eighth notes. Use alternate picking throughout.

Single String Guitar Lick#3

Here is a single string guitar lick again based on the high E string. This guitar lick is based around the notes of the D major scale but with the use of the high E as a repeating pedal point lick you could consider this lick to be based on the E Dorian Mode. The lick begins on the B note at the seventh fret and continues down the neck using a descending sequence. The rhythm of the lick is 16th notes. All the notes are played with alternate picking. Once you get familiar with the guitar lick try concentrating on accenting the  fretted note that starts each sequence.