Lick Of The Week #8: Cyber Warfare Tapping Lick

More of an old school tapping shred lick this week from Cyber Warfare, track 9 on Assimilate Regenerate. The lick descends the B string using C# Phrygian Dominant. I choose to tap with my 2nd (middle) finger of the right hand and keep the pick in place as opposed to the 'Van Halen' method of using the 1st (index) finger and palm the pick. The lick can be heard at 2:21 – 2:24 in the video following the tab. Cheers! PW

Lick Of The Week #7: Half/Whole Diminished Lick

This weeks lick is taken from the guest solo I did for the band Subscale on the track 'Outreach'. Based on D Half/Whole diminished, it starts off with a tapped 4 note per string scale pattern played with 1st and 2nd fingers of the left hand and 2nd and 3rd fingers of the right hand. Following this, some sweep picked arpeggios, C diminished, D major and G# major all of which can be found in D Half/whole diminished scale. Check out the video of the solo below (Lick at 0:13 - 0:17). Have fun! PW

 

Lick Of The Week #6: Orbital Decay Chorus Melody

Nothing too tricky about this weeks lick. I'm essentially using triad arpeggios (with some surrounding notes from F# natural minor) to navigate an ascending chord progression to create an anthemic melody. Here's a link to the full track. Here  Have fun! PW

Lick Of The Week #5: Aeon Displacement

This example comes from the guest solo I did on the track 'Aeon Displacement' from the brilliant album 'Mortuus Machina' by aussie melodic death metal band Universum. It's played over a chord progression, Em, F#,G, A (a IV – V– V1 – VII progression in the key of Bm) For the Em I start with an Em triad arpeggio and then superimpose a Dadd11 arpeggio producing an E minor11 flavour. For the F#, all the notes are taken from F# Phrygian Dominant scale. Then for the G, I use a string skipped tapped Gmajor7 and then move to a Bmin7 arpeggio which creates the right tension over the A chord, due to the fact that we are resolving to the root chord Bm in the following bar. Check out a video below the tab of the recording of the solo, where the lick comes in at 0:25. Cheers! PW

 

Lick Of The Week 4: Enter The Metaverse 2:53 -3:03

By request, here is the arpeggio section from Enter The Metaverse. The underlying progression is predominantly based on the key of B minor:

| G       | D/F#    | A       | D , A/C#  | B       |    %      |    %     |    %     | G        | D/F#       | A#       ||

All the arpeggios used are diatonic except for the A# at the end which implies A# Lydian. The first sweep picked arpeggio pattern is based on a G arpeggio shape. Then over the D/F# (essentially a D major – D, F#, A notes) I use the same pattern concept, this time superimposing largely a Bm arpeggio (B, D, F#) creating a D major 6 sound. Again, for the A, I use the same pattern concept based on an A major arpeggio this time. For the Bm chord, I alternate between D major7 (D, F#, A, C#) and F#m7 (F#, A, C#, E) arpeggios, producing Bm9 and Bm11 sounds respectively. There is a repeat of the first 2 bars before playing the non-diatonic A# chord where I again play the pattern concept based on A major. PW

Lick Of The Week 3: Attack Of The Necromongers 5:29 - 5:35

This lick is virtually identical to the one I play in the 'Attack Of The Necromongers' solo from the album 'Interactive' I did with Grant Collins released back in 2006, and demonstrates a tapping technique that I use all the time, a kind of '7 finger tapping' if you will, as I still hold the pick. (Although I almost never use all 7 fingers in one go so I just call it Legato Tapping.) The lick uses a four-note-per-string B minor pentatonic pattern until the end where I add in the 2nd (C#). For the right hand tapping, I use the 2nd and 4th fingers of the right hand for the pentatonic part, but you could use the 'Spock Technique' (2nd & 3rd fingers) if it feels better. I've chosen to notate most of the lick in groups of 7 as it makes it easier to understand, as the original solo is being played over different time signatures. Some of you might recognise that I play a very similar lick at the end of 'Enter The Metaverse'. PW

 

Lick Of The Week 2: Futureshock 3:07 – 3:14

I actually started out as primarily a jazz fusion and blues inspired guitar player, which has helped me a lot as both a tutor and session guitarist over the years. Although my own musical style has gradually got further and further away from these influences, I still like involving elements in my solos, like the jazz-tinged phrasing in this example. This section is built around chords moving between F and G, so I'm essentially thinking F Lydian/G mixolydian over this. There are a couple of Fmajor7th arpeggios that are given the jazz treatment before moving on to some blues scale legato, finishing with some G major scale string skipping. PW

Lick Of The Week 1: 'Clones' 2:55 - 2:59

Like most of my solos, this lick was born from improvisation. Often I find, with faster licks in particular, I like playing ideas where I'm not really thinking about a set pattern or the note count, but focusing on playing more freely, navigating through a scale from A to B in an interesting fashion and in the allocated amount of time. I like this approach as it often leads to some less 'sterile' sounding ideas and more unusual patterns and timing. This lick uses A Lydian Dominant. PW