Lick 005 Hendrix Style Double Stops

Posted on July 23, 2012July 23, 2012 by aaron@TMC

What are Double Stops?

The term ‘double stop’ actually means to play two notes at once. It sounds fancy but pretty simple to play. All you need to do to play a double stop is play two notes at once whether those notes are on adjacent strings or skip a string. Quite often guitarists will play double stops on adjacent strings because they are easy to play. It all depends on what type of sound you want to go for.

Hendrix style Double Stops

Jimi Hendrix used double stops quite a lot (as do many other blues/rock guitarists). This lick is inspired by the way Hendrix would repeat a note over and over while adding in vibrato (listen to the ending of All Along the Watchtower). This is straight forward when you’re only playing one note at a time but can be a bit tricky when two notes are played. When you play this lick you will need to make sure that both notes have smooth vibrato and the open second string isn’t played. Hit the strings hard when playing the vibrato to get the feel Hendrix would have given.

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Think about which fingers you should use to play the two notes. Try different combinations to figure out which one feels easiest for you. Different people will prefer using different fingers. It doesn’t really matter which fingers you use to play the notes as long as all the other strings remain quiet – especially the B string.

Creating Your Own Double Stop Licks

When you can easily play this lick you can start thinking about how to come up with your own licks that use double stops. There are countless ways double stops can be used so just experiment with them until you find something interesting. Start with a basic scale such as the Minor Pentatonic and think about all the different two note positions you can play. Look for positions where you can play two notes using one finger. Those type of double stops are used all the time in blues and rock improvisation.

Lick 004 Pedal Tone Pull-offs

Posted on July 13, 2012July 13, 2012 by aaron@TMC

How to use pedal tones in your licks

A pedal tone is when you alternate back and forth between one fixed note and others. For an easy example, if you played the notes: A C A E A F# A C# then A would be a pedal tone. Licks that use pedal tones sound interesting because every time you hear a new note, you are comparing it to the pedal tone. In other words, pedal tones focus on the different intervals between the pedal note and the other notes.

When writing your own licks using pedal tones, try to experiment with different intervals. The lick below uses the open B and G strings as the pedal tone. Pull-offs are used to make the lick sound more interesting. You may notice that the second bar is exactly the same as the first bar, only the string has changed. Normally when you change a lick to a different string you need to adjust it so it still fits in the same key. This example is to show you how keeping the intervals fixed to the pedal tone will give a certain feel to the lick. If you wanted to change how it sounds you can simply change the notes around.

Use a metronome to practice this lick because you want the notes to sound consistent. Don’t try to play it faster than you can comfortably as it will sound sloppy. Build up the tempo with the metronome over time. Once you learn the lick, try changing it slightly to play hammer-ons instead of pull-offs. It will change the feel slightly. Try playing the lick across other strings then try to come up with your own pattern using pedal tones. Keep in mind that the open strings were used just as an example, you don’t have to use open strings for pedal tones – you can use any other note on the guitar.

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Lick 003 Grace Notes

Posted on July 4, 2012July 4, 2012 by aaron@TMC

Using Grace Notes to give your licks character

Adding grace notes to any lick you play can quickly transform the lick and give it a lot of character. If you have come up with a lick but it needs something extra to make it exciting, adding a few quick grace notes can change the feel completely. Grace notes are very quick slides, hammer-ons or pull-offs where the first note played is barely heard.

In the lick below, you can see three grace notes. They look like fast hammer-ons and pull-offs but it’s recommended you try to use slides as well to learn to use both. Try playing this lick using hammer-ons and pull-offs for the grace notes then play it again using slides. Decide for yourself which you prefer the sound of. When you look at the rhythm of this lick, notice that the grace notes don’t interfere with the notation. So a grace note really takes up part of the time the next note is played.

This is a very simple lick so the focus is on making it as interesting as possible using the slides, grace notes and vibrato. Play the lick without any of these techniques and you’ll see how boring it can sound. But start to add in all these extra techniques and the lick starts to become interesting. Once you learn this lick, try coming up with different phrasing and try to add more interesting sections to it. Play around with adding in staccatos and rests.

Think about which fingers you use for this lick. The lick should flow easily from one finger to the next without any awkward changes. When learning a lick like this one, the goal is to make it as interesting as possible. What if you changed the grace notes around or played grace notes at different times? Spend some time thinking about how you would change this lick to suit your personal style of playing. Thinking along these lines will help you create your own unique ‘voice’ as a guitarist. Repeat this process with any lick you learn and pretty soon you’re going to have a very distinctive sound.

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