Beginner Guitar Lesson 17 - A Useful Lick

In this article, we’re going to learn a short lick that will make your playing sound more authentic and will serve you well in many other blues progressions, too!

In our 12 bar blues we have 4 bars of A7, 2 bars of D7, 2 bars of A7, 1 bar of E7, 1 bar of D7, 1 bar of A7, and 1 more of E7. This short lick occurs between the first bar of E7 and the following D7 chord. Have a look at this video; observe the right hand picking technique and the movement of the left hand carefully.

(camtasia goes here, bluesletter3)

First, play the D7 chord as this is the shape that you will be using throughout this lick. (If you were to join the dots on the chord diagram, it would make a triangle). Now I want you to move it up towards the pickups two frets, and pluck through the notes from the G string to the thin E string individually. Make sure that you are plucking away from you, using alternate down and up strokes with the plectrum. Do not play the open D string this time.

Now move the same shape down towards the headstock1 fret and do exactly the same picking pattern.

Finally move back to the D7 chord by shifting the same shape down one fret, and this time, strum through it including the open D string. Be sure not to strum the open E and A, though, as that will sound messy.

Here is the notation & tab for this lick.

Try doing that a few times in your own time, just to get used to the movement and the way it sounds. The next step is to play it in time with the correct rhythm & feel. For this, I want you to review the example you watched at the beginning of the lesson.

Rhythm wise you’re playing an E7 for 2 beats, and then you are playing the lick. The jump from the E7 into the lick is the toughest part, so we need to practice that too, but first let’s concentrate on getting the rhythm for that lick down. Note that there are three equal notes per beat in that lick. When you have three equal notes played in one beat, it is called a triplet. The diagram below illustrates the two bars where the lick occurs. It also gives you a numeric representation of the beats in each bar with the note names above it and  where they occur in relation to the beats. We have also included notation and TAB so you can better understand it.

                            Lick-----------------

E7                       B  D  G# Bb  Db G

1----------2---------3----------4----------

D7                                                  

 1----------2---------3----------4----------

So, your next exercise is to set your metronome to 80 and practice playing just those two picked chords (the lick) in triplets. Again gradually increase your speed in increments of 5 bpm until you have it sounding smooth.

Well done! You are now ready to incorporate that lick into the whole progression, but beware of the change from the E7 chord into the lick; it’s quite a jump! And that’s what we need to focus on now.

To get used to that change, simply practice changing between E7 and the little B D G# shape. Play a bar on each again, gradually increasing your tempo from 80 bpm to 100 bpm as before.  

Now you can play a 12 bar blues progression in A. Congratulations! I recommend you practice your blues for at least 10 minutes everyday. In the next article, we’re going to learn about moving chord shapes… a concept that can bring a new and exciting feel and interest to your playing. See you there!