Free Lessons
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Effective effects, Quick licks
A few spooky riffs to play once a year.
Effective effects
Tremolo Tricks, Sitar sounds from guitar
Tremelo Tricks
Use your imagination with effects, tune a pedal with your ears, not what the controls say. These videos, hopefully inspire you to try and get creative with effects.
Sitar sounds from guitar
Use your imagination with effects, tune a pedal with your ears, not what the controls say. These videos, hopefully inspire you to try and get creative with effects.
Quick licks
B minor pentatonic flashy rock lick, E blues turnaround, E minor 7 arpeggio lick, C minor string skip lick, D dorian funk groove, G chicken pickin', C sharp rock arpeggios, B blues bends, G minor rock lick, F♯ minor fast rock lick, Rock ‘n’ roll lick in A, Melodic chordal lick, E harmonic minor lick, D minor octave repeats, F lydian tapped arpeggios
B minor pentatonic flashy rock lick
This is a great lick as it is really the same pattern again and again. Licks like this become much more of a journey when you repeat and adjust the same motif. This is in the key of B minor pentatonic (B D E F♯ A, B). It's a series of hammer-ons and pull-offs, with a full tone bend at the end, have fun with it. I like to further develop ideas such as this, by adding wider intervals, using differnt scales, try playing it on the A and G strings. As always learn it in differnt keys.
E blues turnaround
Use this lick in the last four bars of a standard 12 bar blues in E. For example in the red coloured chords below:
‖E7 / / / | E7 / / / | E7 / / / | E7 / / / |
|A7 / / / | A7 / / / | E7 / / / | E7 / / / |
|B7 / / / | A7 / / / | E7 / / / | B7 / / / ‖
This starts by playing a minor 3 of the B chord, which in theory is a terrible idea, this clashes with the major 3 in the B7 chord (D, 7 fret, G string), but this is the blues, we want that sound, we barely stay on the note, we hammer straight onto the major 3 (D♯, 8 fret, G string), the safe note. Then hit the root note, (B, 7 fret, high E string). We then move this pattern down 2 frets, so it fits over the A chord.
The last 2 bars we play a descending pattern, before landing on the B7 chord, which resolves to E for bar one on the repeat (or a final E7 chord and associated noodling.
E minor 7 arpeggio lick
This lick is a clean sweeped E minor 7 arpegio (E, G, B, D), but I add in other chord tones too, the 2, the 4 and finally a chromatic passage that descends from the 2 down through the root to the major 7, so it will work well over, Eminor9, Esus2, Eminor11, Esus4 and even Eminor△7 chords
Think of this lick as four parts, the first three parts are all similar and the fourth one is different this is always a good option when playing any riff or lick as it establishes a theme, but keeps things fresh by having the final section do something unexpected, to keep the listener interested.
C minor string skip lick
This lick involves some string skipping, so in terms of your picking hand you will play the G and high E strings, but not the B in between, hence the term string skipping. This lick is based on the notes (C, D, E♭, G, C), technically a C minor add 9 chord
D dorian funk groove
This lick is in D dorian which is similar to the natural minor scale, but has a major 6. This makes this mode less ‘serious’ sounding than the minor scale. An important element to this lick is the picking and pick hand muting that occurs, you need to use your picking hand to mute the unwanted strings and hit it with some attitude with your pick, don't use too much finesse.
G chicken pickin'
This lick uses a picking technique known as hybrid picking, we use a flat pick or plectrum in the usual way, but also use our other fingers, this gives more speed than just using a pick alone. The technique can be used in all styles of music, but is most common with country players.
C sharp rock arpeggios
This lick follows the chords C♯m, A, B, A, so feel free to take the ideas and make them fit over whichever chords you are soloing over. I use strict alternate picking to play this lick, you could use economy picking, but that would take away the aggresive sound.
B blues bends
This lick is based on the B minor pentatonic scale, it uses the elements of the guitar that make it the unique instrument it is, bends and vibrato.
G minor rock lick
This lick may appear complex, it may well be, but it is the same pattern on the D and G strings, which I refer to as a parallel lick. It uses the G natural minor scale, as with all these licks though, try it in other keys and on other strings.
F♯ minor fast rock lick
This is a great repeating lick, although I say it is in F♯ minor, it could also be considered to be in C♯ minor, it all depends on the context. Like all aspects of guitar playing, this lick really is one to take slowly at first, but keep at it, of course you'll never be happy with your speed and it's something that we all work on
Rock ‘n’ roll lick in A
This lick is very inspired by licks from the rock ‘n’ roll era. It uses double stops (two notes together) on the top two strings, it is in the key of A minor pentatonic and descends down the scale to finish. Try it with other styles of music too, crank the gain on your amp and it will work with more contempary styles.
Melodic chordal lick
This is a very Jimi Hendrix inpired lick. I love this style of playing which combines chords with melody and in my opinion no one made it as popular as Jimi Hendrix. Keep the picking hand fairly loose with this one to keep the vibe and be careful to mute the unwanted strings.
E harmonic minor lick
This lick uses the harmonic minor scale. I use a pattern where I descend four notes down the scale, then move back one note, then repeat this whole process, the TAB probably tells the story better than I can in this description.
D minor octave repeats
This lick takes a simple phrase and repeats it across 3 octaves. Any lick you play across a pair of strings can have this idea applied to it.
F lydian tapped arpeggios
This lick is three chords played as arpeggios, we are playing the root and the fifth of the chord with our usual fretting hand by hammering. Then add the third of the chord with our usual picking hand, by tapping. The squares represent the fret hand taps and the diamonds represent the picking hand taps.
