Channel: New Secret Guitar Teacher

Category: Music

Tags: hammer onshow toslidesrifftechniqueimprovisesecret guitar teacherlead guitarsecretlicksbluesbendsspeedblues guitarguitar secretsnick minnionguitar lickteacherbendlickjamsecretguitarteacherstring pairingpull offsjamminghowtofluencyriffshammer-onimprovleadblues leadguitarbetterslideimprovesecret guitarpull-offimprovising

Description: This is a sample lesson form the Secret Guitar Teacher site: secretguitarteacher.com In this video, Nick shows how you can greatly improve the speed and fluency of your blues lead guitar playing by working on pairs of adjacent strings using simple techniques. Here is the abridged transcript: If you have learnt your pentatonic or blues scale patterns and drilled them up to speed, but are still struggling to make your lead guitar playing sound like you want it, then this lesson might help you make the breakthrough. We are going to look at one of the aspects of lick formation that rarely gets discussed. This is the subject of working pairs of strings using combinations of different techniques like this. Let’s zoom in on the detail and look at some of the tricks behind this set of skills. A good place to start is to use a hammer-on to turn two notes into three like this and the key to doing this rhythmically and fluently is to make sure the right hand is dictating the rhythm and tempo. So, I suggest starting with a pair of open strings like this. And pick the pair of strings with an alternating down/up movement of the pick – down on the lower string – up on the higher one. Nice and rhythmically, but not too fast just yet. Now, with the fretting hand, make a mini barre across the pair – we’ll try this at fret 5 on the middle two strings – and get that alternating picking action going … and once it has settled in, try to time the hammer-on to link the other two notes evenly like this. Once you have got it going steadily, you can begin to speed it up. The reverse of this technique is the pull-off link across a pair of strings like this…The approach to this is similar, but this time my pick works from inside the pair of strings. Picking down on the higher string and up on the lower one. There’s a kind of circular motion to this with both hands following the same path. Once you have got these two basic techniques down, try this combination lick. Pay particular attention to playing this rhythmically. Here’s a nice lick that combines a slide with a hammer-on/pull-off across the 2nd and 3rd string. I am showing you this as you might use it in the second position blues scale in A. You can then develop that to echo the idea in the middle of the first position like this. There’s a whole bunch of licks across pairs of strings that incorporate bending technique as well. This is a four-note lick incorporating a bend, release and pull-off on the higher string anchored down to a straight note played on the lower string . This is often played following another string classic pairing lick – the unison bend. There you go, there’s a few starting points for you to go ahead and develop your own improvising ideas on. Remember, each of these basic ideas has an infinite number of possible variations and takes experimentation to build your own repertoire of licks to give your playing its own special individuality. For more ideas like these why not sign up for a free trial at the Secret Guitar Teacher site and check out our Intermediate Lead Guitar Courses? See you again soon!