By Tom Hess

Are you having a hard time coming up with awesome sounding guitar licks? You’re not alone. Many guitar players don’t know how to play great licks, even when they have already developed great technical skills. Why is this? Most guitarists do not take the time to focus on each individual note in order to get as much expression as possible from it. This approach will only lead you to mediocrity as a lead guitar player.
Previously you learned how to improve your lead guitar licks with the exercise in the first entry to this series. After practicing the exercise in that article, you have now seen the BIG difference it makes in your lead guitar phrasing. If you have not already gone through and read the first part of this article series, don’t read the article first – Instead, get started by watching the video below on how to play great lead guitar licks. Once you have done that, use the exercise in the previous article entry to apply the ideas into your guitar playing. Now you are going to learn how to get the most emotion possible out of all remaining notes from your lead guitar licks. Keep in mind that you can use the following guitar phrasing exercise even if you did not read the first half of this article already. However, do not skip watching the video above (this is necessary for understanding the ideas being used).
Lead Guitar Licks Phrasing Exercise (How To Create Tons Of Killer Licks)
Step One: Create a short guitar lick with slow note rhythms. Use a maximum of three or four notes to make your lick. If you play your lick using rhythms that are too fast, you will miss out on the specific nuances that you will notice in the following steps. If you use too many notes, you will become distracted by trying to remember which notes to play and will be unable to pay close attention to the way each note sounds. Once you have made your lead guitar phrase with these things in mind, move on to step two.
Step Two: As you observed by watching the previously mentioned video, the ornamental techniques used to change the lick were:

• Bending
• Heavy vibrato
• Slides

Come up with no less than ten unique variations of your lead guitar phrase by emphasizing ONLY the first note in your lick with any combination of the above three techniques. For the time being, keep the other notes in your phrase exactly the same as when you made it.
Remember: you need to keep all of the pitches in your guitar lick the same (don’t add any new ones at this point) – you are only changing the way you ‘play’ the first note in your phrase. If you are able to record yourself while you are playing, do this and listen back to yourself so you can make subtle improvements to your approach. If you cannot record yourself, still continue through this exercise anyway. As you continue thinking of new variations, you will notice your guitar phrasing skills increasing. This is because you are forcing yourself to think creatively since you cannot change the pitch of the notes in your lick. As a result, your guitar lick will sound infinitely more expressive than the way it sounded when you first began in step one. Also, don’t get caught up on trying to keep track of every single variation you think of (this is not the point of the exercise). Instead, continue working through the process of training yourself to get the most expression possible out of every note you play.   Step Three: Using the same approach from step two, apply the concept to the other notes in your lead guitar phrase (do this one note at a time). As you are thinking of new variations for the notes in between the first and the last, play the other notes either using the original phrasing from step one or any of the new variations you made in step two. The bottom line is you must focus on using all your mental energy on ‘one’ note of the phrase at a time (for this step).   After you are done with this process, you will have come up with ten different ways to change the sound the notes in the guitar lick you created from step one.
Step Four: When you have finished creating variations for each note of your guitar phrase individually, start playing variations of the phrase as a whole. Accomplish this by making combinations of any of the ideas you came up with from the previous steps of this exercise. After taking the time to think of ten or more variations for each note, you should have TONS of ideas to select from. CRUCIAL: you must not add extra notes to your lick in this guitar phrasing exercise… only focus on getting the maximum possible expression from each note in your original phrase. You might be wondering why I did not begin this exercise by telling you to simply do step four after step one. Here is why I did this:   A. Most guitar players tend to only emphasize the first and last notes in their licks while not paying attention to the (also important) notes in the middle. This common mistake leads to weak sounding phrases because the guitar lick ‘as a whole’ lacks expression.   B. Unless you are an advanced guitar player (or have already learned how to improve your guitar phrasing technique from a great teacher) you would probably miss out on the full value of this exercise because you would stop prematurely (after only thinking of a few variations for your lick). It is for this reason that I told you to make at least ten different variations per note in your guitar lick.   What Is The Value Of Using This Lead Guitar Phrasing Exercise?   These are the two main reasons why performing the previous steps are essential for making progress to develop your guitar phrasing skills:   1. You understand precisely how to create an awesome guitar lick from start to finish (without worrying about the specific notes being used).   2. This exercise will keep your guitar licks from becoming overrun with excess notes that do not sound interesting and are merely being used to cover up poor phrasing. By breaking this habit, you will see drastic improvement in all of the lead guitar phrases you play.   Here Is What You Need To Do Next   1. Use the exercise in this article to practice improving your guitar licks on a consistent basis. Repeat this exercise until it becomes second nature to apply the concepts involved for EVERY new guitar lick you play.   2. Watch this video on how to play rock guitar licks and get more ideas for creating cool lead guitar phrases.   3. Create better guitar solos by studying these lead guitar playing resources.   4. Find an expert guitar instructor who can show you the best way to express yourself when you create lead guitar licks. Then work together with that teacher to identify and achieve your highest musical goals.     About The Author: Tom Hess is an online electric guitar teacher, recording artist and virtuoso guitarist. He trains guitar players from around the world how to reach their musical goals in his correspondence guitar lessons online. Visit his website  tomhess.net to receive many free guitar playing resources, mini courses, guitar practice eBooks, and to read more articles about guitar playing.

 

Wish you could play killer guitar licks every time you pick up your guitar? The truth is many guitar players think that great guitar licks are made by playing specific notes or scales. However, this usually not the case. As you will find out in this article (and video), the key to playing killer guitar phrases is focusing on ‘how’ you play… not necessarily which notes you use.
In a few moments, you will discover just how easy it is to make your own guitar licks sound killer regardless of the notes you are using. On top of that, you will find out how to do this every single time you play guitar.
The first action you need to take (right now) is to watch the short video on this page to see an exact demonstration of the main ideas in this article. By watching the video, you will MASSIVELY increase your ability to absorb the ideas and use them to improve your own guitar playing. Additionally, the video will help you get the most value from the lead guitar phrasing exercise you will find below. Check out the video now, then come back to read the rest of this article.

Now that you have seen the demonstrations in the video, implement the following steps to empower your guitar licks:
Step 1: Think of a lead guitar lick that you can play accurately. The lick you select can be in any style, using any notes. Alternatively, improvise a new (short) guitar lick. Then play through this lick a few times.
Step 2: As you watch the guitar licks video above, you will see how I use slides in several different ways to emphasize the last note in a guitar phrase. Grab a piece of paper and write out a list of descriptions of how to perform all the different variations you observe in the video (use a single sentence or less to describe each one). Writing this down and thinking about it on your own is more valuable than me ‘giving’ you the list of variations to practice because it trains you to actively listen for and pinpoint subtle guitar phrasing ideas on your own. When you describe how each slide variation feels, simply use descriptive words that will help you remember the idea itself (the words themselves are not that important). If you need to, watch the video several times until you have completed your list.
Step 3: To change your lead guitar lick from the first step into a KILLER guitar lick, use the slide variations in your list from the previous step to accent the final note of the phrase. By simply changing the way you play the final note of the lick, you will notice that each new variation sounds MUCH more powerful than the original phrase. Once you have tried all of the different variations from your list (that you saw me do on the video), start coming up with your own unique variations using the same concept. There are countless ways that you can accent a note using this phrasing concept. Be creative and try to come up with at least 5-10 variations. Next, add all of your new ideas to the list you began in step two (with descriptions) and play through them all several times.
Step 4: To expand upon the different variations in your list from the previous step, you will now add even more intensity into your phrase by applying vibrato/bending to the last note after approaching it with a slide. Use the video as a reference for new ideas and write down a short description for each new bend/vibrato variation you see. Then think of your own ideas (just like you did in the previous step). This will give you even more phrasing options to enhance your creative possibilities. Next, play one of the new variations you made and compare it to the guitar lick from the first step in this exercise. You will see a BIG improvement in the overall quality and intensity of the two licks.
Step 5: After you have enhanced a single lead guitar lick using this exercise, repeat the previous steps with several other licks you are familiar with.
After you complete this exercise several times, it will become much easier for you to play great guitar licks with little effort.
Since the final note of a guitar lick is often the one that most people notice, you can quickly improve any of your phrases by focusing your efforts on emphasizing this note. However, you can also use the ideas of this article to improve any other note in your guitar licks. In the second part of this article series, I will discuss how to do this in more detail.
In the meantime, use the information in these free video guitar lessons to learn many new approaches that will improve your lead guitar soloing skills.

About The Author:

Tom Hess is a successful professional guitar player, composer and international guitar teacher. He also helps musicians learn guitar online and reach their guitar playing goals. Visit his rock and metal guitar lessons site to read more articles about guitar playing, plus get free guitar tips and guitar playing resources.

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Do you know how much your vibrato has improved over the last  6-12 months of playing guitar? Most musicians have no way to answer this  question because vibrato is believed to be impossible to track progress with.  Because of this, guitar vibrato rarely gets the practice time it deserves,  leading to far too many guitarists playing with very inexpressive and simply  ‘bad’ sounding vibrato.

To start, study the video below where I will show you how  simple it is to assess your level of mastery over vibrato. Watch the video  below before reading further:

 

To see the next part  of this video, study this page about guitar vibrato technique.

After studying the above procedure for testing the current  state of your vibrato, you need to adapt it as part of your regular practicing  to track your progress with vibrato over time. Here is how you need to do this:

1. Don’t spend all of your practice time (for vibrato)  practicing on only 1 pitch. You must also work on this skill in the real-life  application scenarios of guitar licks and solos. Although this seems obvious,  many people get stuck in practicing a certain technique in isolation without  applying it into the real world.

2. Log the metronome tempos at which you are able to play  vibrato technique, just like you track your progress with speed building  exercises (scale sequences, arpeggios etc.). Of course when you do vibrato in  actual music, it doesn’t need to be strictly in time all the time, but you must  have the skill to allow yourself to make it so, if needed. THAT is what will  make it possible to choose the best and most expressive way of using vibrato in  your songs and melodies. Knowing the precise metronome tempo at which you can  do controlled vibrato will give you the perfect indication of how this area of  your technique is progressing.

3. Spend some time recording your vibrato practice sessions  and then listen back to the recordings at “half tempo” (this can be easily  achieved in any computer recording program). Doing this will make it easier for  your ears to perceive the nuances of how your vibrato sounds in real time. Most  guitarists never analyzed their playing in that much detail and doing so leads  to many new discoveries on how to make your guitar playing better.

4. When you do vibrato within guitar licks and solos, vary  the rhythmic values you use to play it (exactly like I demonstrated for you in  the video tutorial above). This is important to do because you don’t want to be  boxed into only doing vibrato in a single way all the time. I also put this as  a separate step from simply “training with a click”, because you will be  thinking differently when playing over a musical track about your phrasing and  vibrato than you will when practicing to a metronome.

Don’t forget the final result you are after: to make your  vibrato sound GREAT. So don’t make the mistake of focusing on the tempo at  which you are doing vibrato and losing sight of the other elements that must be  refined to totally master vibrato.

Implement the above points into your practicing and you will  start to see your vibrato (and your guitar playing) sound much better than ever  before.

About the author: Mike Philippov is an educational guitar author, professional  guitar player and composer. He writes articles and publishes videos about the  best ways to practice guitar that are studied by many musicians worldwide. To  get more help with becoming a better guitar player, visit his guitar practicing website.

 

By Tom Hess

Are you having a hard time thinking up great rock guitar solo improvisations? If so, you are in the company of many guitarists. Fact is, there are endless amounts of guitar players who want to play guitar solos in a highly creative manner; however, for one reason or another, very few have the ability to do so. So why does this happen?

1. A very high percentage of the guitar playing community has NOT invested much time into developing their guitar phrasing abilities. This severely limits their ability to improvise inspiring guitar solo licks because they only understand ‘what’ needs to be played but not ‘how’ to play it!

2. The majority of guitar players who want to play guitar solos think that they must build their solos from a series of isolated guitar licks in order to make them sound better (although this is not true).

If you are looking to make massive positive change in your ability to improvise rock guitar solos, it will require consistent and focused effort to build your understanding of the points above (I teach my guitar students in detail about these things with my correspondence rock guitar lessons). With this in mind, you can work on improving your rock guitar improvisation skills right now using the guitar licks you already know very well. In fact, by doing this you can quickly create great guitar solo improvisation ideas in the moment without learning any new guitar melodies. To illustrate how you can do this for yourself, I am going to show you a highly effective guitar soloing approach.

Here is the process you should follow:

1. Locate a backing track that contains chords you feel good soloing over.

2. Think of a short guitar melody that you are already familiar with and can play with reliable accuracy.

3. Start the track with the chords you made (or found online) and play the guitar lick you chose over it.

4. After you have played your guitar lick one time over the backing track, do NOT play something new. Rather than adding in a totally new lick, play the same lick from step two; except this time make a variation of this lick using any one of the following methods:

· Use an alternate rhythm for the notes you are playing while keeping the actual pitches the same.

· Change some or all of the pitches in your guitar lick while keeping the rhythm of the notes the same.

· Create a different ending for the lick you are playing while playing all of the previous notes the same (additionally, try this while the chords of the backing track are changing).

· Utilize different techniques such as vibrato, legato and bending to add extra ornamentation to your lick.

Try to come up with a total of ten alternate ways to play the guitar lick you chose without entirely changing the lick itself. I know that in a “real” guitar solo you will not be playing the exact same lick over and over. However, by going through this process, you can greatly enhance your ability to improvise creative guitar solo ideas.

After you have improvised ten variations, choose a new guitar lick that is different from the previous one and repeat the steps of this exercise for the remainder of your guitar practice session.

The approach described above is an entirely different one than the one most guitarists take when they improvise rock guitar solos. Focusing on coming up with many variations of a single guitar solo lick is actually a lot less difficult than trying to jam together several unrelated guitar licks and improvise at the same time. Additionally, this process of improvising a single rock guitar lick will sound much better because you have many different guitar phrasing techniques at your disposal that you can use to enhance the notes of each lick you choose.

You may think that this guitar soloing approach sounds like a really basic approach. If so, you’re right… this approach is both basic and incredibly productive at building your rock guitar playing skills. In fact, this is the same approach I have used many hundreds of times to help guitar players learn to play great lead guitar improvisations.

Learn how you can play great rock guitar solos using the exact approach in this article by checking out this free guitar improvisation video:

 

 

 

About The Author: Tom Hess is a successful professional guitar player, composer and the guitarist of the band Rhapsody Of Fire. He also trains musicians to reach their guitar playing goals in his rock guitar lessons online. Visit his rock and metal guitar lessons site to read more articles about guitar playing, plus get free guitar tips and guitar playing resources.

Perhaps the best way to answer that question is with another, and that is, what are arpeggios exactly?

Arpeggios are the notes of a chord played one at a time; or think of them as ‘liquid chords’ or alternatively chords could be ‘frozen arpeggios’. With that in mind let’s get down to where they are used.

• Arpeggios can be used over chords, you could change arpeggio every time a chord changes. Or keep the same arpeggio idea repeating while the chords change (this is called an ostinato)
• They can be used very easily in basic melody playing – by learning the arpeggio shape that goes with the chord you instantly have all the notes that work with that chord
• And in blues, they can give a more sophisticated sound to your playing by spelling out the changes in the underlying chords
• Because arpeggios are liquid chords, they can also outline the harmony without having to play the chords. If somebody is using arpeggios well, they can outline the chord progression and it almost sounds like the chords are being played, but they are not – they are just being suggested by the arpeggios.
•  Playing scales and arpeggios will help you understand music better
• Arpeggios can be played using many techniques, Tapping, Alternating picking, Legato, Sweep, Harmonics – all will give arpeggios a unique character.
• By using Arpeggios in conjunction with scales you greatly increase your repertoire of ideas.

 

Blues and Arpeggios – a good place to start using arpeggios

When you start learning to play blues you will most likely be playing a minor pentatonic over the whole sequence, maybe you learn some licks and stuff, but for the most part you will be playing the one scale over a group of chords. At some point you will probably want to start thinking more chordally and playing notes that are related to the chord being played and this is where arpeggios come into action! As previously stated playing arpeggios over the blues can give a jazzier more sophisticated sound to your playing.

Jazz and Arpeggios

There are basically two different methods of improvisation, one employs the use of scales over a given chord or chord progression, the other, the use of arpeggios. It is, however, much easier to outline the chord changes in songs with fast tempos and many key changes such as in Bebop, using arpeggios. The important thing to remember is that arpeggios are born from scales, just as the diatonic chords.

Hopefully this article will inspire you to start learning and practice your arpeggios, check out our free arpeggios lessons at www.internet-guitar-lessons/page27.html

Duncan Jones