Another Wide Interval Guitar Lick

Another wide interval guitar lick. Tuned down a half step if you want to play along ( same goes for the last one too - forgot to mention that). A lot of octaves in this pattern and based around the D Major scale. I also enjoy this pattern with lots of distortion and letting the notes ring together but it can be a little cacophonous for some so I thought I demonstrate it with a cleaner tone and some delay.

Wide Interval Guitar Lick

I've always loved the sound of wide interval guitar licks. This guitar lick is based around the C major scale.
For some beautiful examples of these type of guitar licks in a band context check out the Red Hot Chili Peppers. "Scar Tissue" is a good example of a song based around a wide interval guitar lick. On a different note the last post talked about inspiration and creativity. I just wanted to let everyone know I came across the playing of an awesome guitarist named Nels Cline. Do yourself a favor if you have never heard his playing and check him out on youtube. He currently plays with the band Wilco and has played with Banyan ( he does a really wicked 'Maggot Brain') but it is his own material I found the most interesting. Anyway he has a really great combination of so called traditional technique and more experimental elements that I think a lot of people will find interesting and hopefully inspire you to create new sounds with your own instruments. I've read that he has recorded on over 150 albums so I've got lots of great playing to check out.

Creativity and Inspiration for Guitarists

In my opinion there are few things that drive creativity more than inspiration. An inspired artist will create sometimes a seemingly effortless flow of new material while an uninspired counterpart with equal talent will toil for years with meager output. Inspiration can be finicky though at least for me. I tend to recoil at the thought of trying to force music or art and take things as they come. It's easy though to use this philosophy as an excuse to stay inactive and unproductive or just plain lazy.

A great way to rekindle inspiration to create music is to listen to different instruments and genres of music outside of your comfort zone or the style which you mainly create within. As an example I've posted a guitar lick that uses an altered tuning meant to capture the drone overtones you'd hear on a sitar or similar instrument with sympathetic vibrations. The tuning for this guitar lick has every note tuned down to Db. Please note every note is detuned so DO NOT increase the tension on the strings to hit the Db or they will break. For some notes the detuning can be significant and using a heavier gauge string will reduce the "spaghetti" feel of the slackened strings. Anyway here is the guitar lick I came up with. On a related note if you'd like to explore world music CourseA.org has a course starting tomorrow online that is free and looks quite interesting. You can read more about it here: https://www.coursera.org/course/worldmusic

Soloing over last progression

In this guitar lick we look at soloing over the last progression using the D Dorian mode which is comprised of notes  from the C Major scale. You could also think of it as the D Minor Pentatonic Scale with an added E note. The main shape for the solo is based around the first shape of the D Minor Pentatonic scale with the addition of the E note. Here is the video and tab to follow along. Guitars are in standard tuning. Drums courtesy of Sonoma Wireworks Riffworks Instant Drummer.

Triad Shapes for Guitar

Triads are made up of the root, third and fifth of a chord. In this guitar lick I've created a chord progression in the key of C that utilizes triad chord shapes on the top three strings of the guitar. The chords are Dm/Am/G/F Em. The best example of triad use in modern guitar playing that I can think of is by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. There are a lot of tracks from 'Californication' and 'By the Way' where John Frusciante employs the use of triads to add depth and interest to the chord progressions in many of their songs. Triads are also used frequently in Reggae guitar playing because the smaller chord shape is better suited to the muted and staccato style found in a lot of Reggae guitar music. In the next few examples we will look at how to solo and add more guitar parts over this progression to demonstrate how the basic triad part works within the context of the musical piece as a whole.

Jazz Guitar Lick over Rhythm Changes

I've decided to learn a respectable amount of jazz guitar in 2012. I've started by focusing on some Charlie Christian solos because they are a reasonable speed and melodically and rhythmically are less intimidating than more modern jazz. Charlie Christian solos also swing mightily and are beautiful pieces of music. The first song I tackled was "Rose Room" from "Genius of the Electric Guitar". The solo had a lyrical quality and I was quickly humming along to it. It that spirit I've tried to come up with a little jazz guitar lick over the first four chords in the standard Bb Rhythm Changes. BbMaj7/Gm7|Cm7/F7

I really haven't delved into much jazz scale theory so I tried to incorporate chord tones and used passing chromatic notes that I liked. I think it what came out was a pretty cool sounding guitar lick. Certainly doesn't swing as much as I'd like but I'm  just beginning to get a handle on this.

Learn Blues Guitar Solo in A with Tab & Video

This is a blues guitar solo in A. The backing track was provided by Jimihaynes  http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=532816  this track is used by permission of the author. Please note that this track is in STANDARD tuning. This track is based in A Minor Pentatonic is a 12 bar blues progression. It utilizes a sliding 6ths at the start. This was originally part of the old video guitar lessons site that is now being migrated into this blog.