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Okay guys, this is a lesson that I wanted to do for a while, because I see a lot of people discouraged from playing the guitar when they see a guitarist put out a lick that sounds so awesome but looks so complicated that it makes them feel tiny in comparison. Well in this lesson, I’m going to be showing you some of the most feared guitar licks, melodic riffs and signature tricks for the guitar that are out there.
There will be future parts to this lesson as well, basically if you have any licks that you’ve heard that you can’t figure out, just post them to me and I’ll see if I can transcribe them for you.
These lessons will cover many different styles of guitarist from many varying backgrounds, but mostly they will be electric guitarists as let’s be honest it’s the power behind the electric guitar that gives most of the force behind many of the riffs we’ve heard. Also, most acoustic guitars don’t have as long a fret-board as electric guitars in order to maintain a large hollow space inside the instrument and retain its sound quality. This means many electric guitar licks are almost impossible to perform on the acoustic guitar due to there simply not being enough room for your fingers.
First up is a guy that most people would agree comes across as the single weirdest guitarist on the planet: Buckethead.
Jokingly referred to by his fans as a robot designed to shred, he appears on stage with a plastic bucket on his head and an expressionless white face mask. Real name Brian Carrol, there is much more than just one technique in this man’s arsenal, being capable of playing virtually any style imaginable with equal ability.
The lick I wanted to show to you is taken from a song of his called Siege engine. At about two minutes into the song there is a phrase that Buckethead plays that sounds almost alien like, it’s played with a lot of overdrive mixed into his sound and is actually all played on only one string. The phrase itself isn’t that complicated, but what sets it apart from a lot of other licks is the fact that it requires that you are able to stretch your fingers pretty far up and down the neck, as well as having reasonably good finger independence.
Here’s the lick:
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E||--0-h7h10h12p10p7-|--0-h7h10h12p10p7-||--0-h7h10h12p10p7-|--0-h3-h5-h8-p5-p3-|
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E||--0-h7h10h12p10p7-|--0-h7h10h12p10p7-||--0-h7h10h12p10p7-|--0-h3-h5-h8-p5-p3-|
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E||--0-h7h10h12p10p7-|--0-h7h10h12p10p7-||--0-h7h10h12p10p7-|--0-h3-h5-h8-p5-p3-|
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E||-0-h5-h8-h10-p8-p5|-0-h5-h8-h10-p8-p5||-0-h3-h5-h8-p5-p3-|--0-h3-h5-h8-p5-p3-|
The whole thing is played twice in the song before Buckethead finished it with a power chord. The main things to focus on are two fingers.
Firstly you should practice hammering on the strings with your index finger. Generally with it being the finger closest to your guitar’s headstock it just lays around on the fret-board helping to construct chords without really moving all that much; however this is what’s known as a legato technique as your fretting hand is the one that is sounding the notes instead of your picking hand, with the exception of the first note, and the distance between the frets on guitar on one string is larger when you are playing on lower frets. This means that you will have to hammer on the first hammered-on note with your index finger, or you simply won’t be able to stretch the rest of your fingers far enough to compensate for this; it will feel strange at first, but once you have learnt how to do this it will also help with your alternate picking as the transition from playing on one string to playing another will be much smoother.
The second thing is to incorporate your pinkie finger as well. Many people don’t see it as being worthwhile as this finger is more often than not shorter than the others, but believe me even Buckethead with his massive hands has to use his pinkie finger in order to hit the higher notes in this lick. It doesn’t matter how hard you try, the maximum distance between the tip of your index finger and the tip of your ring finger will always be shorter than the maximum distance between the tip your index finger and the tip of your pinkie finger.
Next up is a guitarist from the seventies that wrote probably the most recognisable riff in rock music, ‘Highway Star’, the man in black Ritchie Blackmore.
This guy has a reputation for being one of the most awkward men in the business to get along with or to work with, but has undoubtedly produced some of the key cornerstones of classic rock music; both in riffs and in the solos he’s written into songs.
The lick that I have chosen to show you how to play is a section from probably his most infamous solo on the track ‘Highway star’. It is very demanding in terms of dexterity, finger independence and retaining accuracy while playing at faster speeds, but I will tell you what you should be focusing on during this solo to make your job as easy as possible.
There are actually two ways of playing this same lick but the actual notes are exactly the same, instead they are just played further up the neck on thicker strings so that it’s less of a strain on your fingers. I’ll show you the version that is played on the made in Japan live version as well as the studio version (as they are in fact exactly the same for this particular part of the solo) first of all.
E||--10--8-----------|--10--8---------10||--10--8-----------|--10--8----------10|
B||--------10--------|--------10--------||--------11--8-----|--------11--8------|
G||-----------10--7--|-----------10--7--||--------------7---|---------------7---|
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E||--12--10----------|--12--10----------||-5--------6-------|-7--------8--------|
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G||------------12--9-|------------12--9-||------------------|-------------------|
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Play twice through
(Please note that the notes in this section are actually at twice the speed of the previous one as I can’t fit them all on otherwise)
E||-5-6-7-8-5-6-7-8--|-5-6-7-8-5-6-7-8--||-5-6-7-8-5-6-7-8--|-5-6-7-8-5-6-7-8---|
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E||-6-8-9-10-6-8-9-10|-6-8-9-10-6-8-9-10||-6-8-9-10-6-8-9-10|-6-8-9-10-6-8-9-10-|
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E||-8-101112-8-101112|-8-101112-8-101112||-8-101112-8-101112|-8-101112-8-101112-|
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E||-0-0-1716-0-0-1615|-0-0-1514-0-0-1413||-0-0-1312-0-0-1211|-0-0-11-10-0-0-10-9|
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Play this twice but on the second repeat the last bar is extended so that it plays as this
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E||-0-0-9-8-0-0-8-7--|-0-0-7-6-0-0-6-5--||-0-0-5-4-0-0-4-3--|-0-0-3-2-0-0-2-1---|
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The things to focus on in this lick are twofold but relatively straightforward.
- This solo’s appeal is based on its accuracy, so make sure that you practice playing this slowly first. Don’t try playing this fast straight from the word go or you will only end up teaching yourselves bad habits. Make sure that as you speed up, your accuracy isn’t suffering; if you can’t play it accurately fast, that means you’re not ready to play it fast quite yet.
- The notes being played in this solo require that all 4 of your fingers are put into use, so you must practice playing your guitar using all of your fingers to play different notes. Even fingers that you wouldn’t normally use will be needed for this lick, so building up your finger independence is a must. One way to build this up is a simple hammer-on exercise; you find a note anywhere on the guitar and continually hammer-on that note at a constant speed while changing which finger is hammering the note, for example changing from your middle finger to your index finger. The better you finger independence gets, the smoother it should sound when you change which finger you are using.
Here is the version that’s played higher up on the guitar where the frets are closer together. Make sure that you have a go at both to see which one feels the best for you to play.
Tab info : --9v- = use vibrato by wavering the string up and down by bending it to get a sort of wavy sound
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B||-15--13-----------|-15--13---------15||-15--13-----------|-15--13---------15-|
G||-------14---------|-------14---------||-------15-12------|-------15-12-------|
D||---------15--12---|---------15--12---||-------------12---|-------------12----|
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B||-17--15-----------|-17--15-----------||------------------|-------------------|
G||-------17---------|-------17---------||-14v------15v-----|-16v------17v------|
D||---------17-14----|---------17-14----||------------------|-------------------|
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Play twice just as before.
Remember that just as I did before, I will have to write this so that it goes at twice the speed of the section before this otherwise I won’t be able to fit all of the notes on
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G||14151617-14151617-|14151617-14151617-||14151617-14151617-|-14151617-14151617-|
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G||15171819-15171819-|15171819-15171819-||15171819-15171819-|-15171819-15171819-|
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B||13151617-13151617-|13151617-13151617-||13151617-13151617-|-13151617-13151617-|
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E||-0-0-1716-0-0-1615|-0-0-1514-0-0-1413||-0-0-1312-0-0-1211|-0-0-11-10-0-0-10-9|
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G||14151617-14151617-|14151617-14151617-||14151617-14151617-|-14151617-14151617-|
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G||15171819-15171819-|15171819-15171819-||15171819-15171819-|-15171819-15171819-|
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B||13151617-13151617-|13151617-13151617-||13151617-13151617-|-13151617-13151617-|
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E||-0-0-1716-0-0-1615|-0-0-1514-0-0-1413||-0-0-1312-0-0-1211|-0-0-11-10-0-0-10-9|
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E||-0-0-9-8-0-0-8-7--|-0-0-7-6-0-0-6-5--||-0-0-5-4-0-0-4-3--|-0-0-3-2-0-0-2-1---|
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After this is goes into a little spontaneous bit before the next verse comes around, but this lick is the hardest part of the entire solo by far. This second version is slightly easier to play if you have smaller hands as the distance between the frets is slightly shorter higher up the fretboard.
And for the last Lick in this lesson, I will show you a trick used by the infamous Dimebag Darrel on the guitar solo from the song ‘Walk’ by Pantera.
Now there is one part of this solo that seems to catch a lot of people out when they are trying to play it, and it’s the part where he’s sliding one note up continually as if he’s using an echo effect, in fact he called it the ‘false echo’ technique. In a sense he is echoing himself, but in a very clever way. Don’t worry, you won’t need a guitar with ridiculously overpowered pickups to perform this trick.
What he does during this solo is first slide up the note with a finger on one hand, then while he’s sliding this note up, he frets the note he was originally sliding up with a finger on his other hand so that when he pulls his finger off the string it will sound the note that he started on, making it sound like his guitar is repeating what it’s just done. On walk he slides one note up one octave 4 times to make sound like his guitar is echoing itself.
He’s the tab for just those 4 slides below this text:
Tab info:
--p2- = pull-off your finger from the string shown to sound a note while fretting the string on the fret numbered
/ = Slide finger(s) up the fret-board to the fret shown
--9v- = use vibrato by wavering the string up and down by bending it to get a sort of wavy sound
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D||-5/17-----p5/17---|-p5/17-----p5/17v-||------------------|-------------------|
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Things to remember when playing this lick and using this technique:
- When going to fret the note that you started on using your picking hand (essentially tapping but holding the note down and then sliding it up) make sure that your finger has already got the note held down by the time you pull your finger off the string otherwise the open note of the string will sound first, which could potentially ruin the feel of the entire riff.
- You don’t have to do this in octaves when you are writing solos by yourself, or even pull off to the same note that you started, but this is a technique that requires a lot more thought than techniques such as alternate picking as you have both of your hands operating on the fret-board at the same time, so I would recommend really practicing this technique to get it polished before trying spontaneous soloing with it.
- Focus on making sure that you are hitting the correct string when you are fretting notes behind the one that you are sliding up, and that you are not causing any other strings to sound unintentionally as this will be crucial when you are playing a solo. Sounds simple, but when both of your hands are moving over the fret-board at the same time, it can be a lot harder than it sounds.
- You can’t expect the note to sound by just removing your finger from the string, so you have to remember to perform a pull off. In other words, make sure that as your finger leaves the string when you slide it up the note you want and then remove it so you here the note below it on the same string that you pluck the string with your finger as it leaves the string, otherwise the note simply won’t sound as clear or as loud as it should do.
And that’s pretty much it for this first part of this lesson. Coming up in the next instalment will be tricks used by Paul Gilbert, Stevie Ray Vaughn and Mark Knoffler. If you have any guitar tricks that you don’t know how to play, send me a comment I’ll put it in one of the lessons to this series.
I hope that this lesson has helped some of you out there.
Take care guys and I’ll see you next time!
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