50 Rock Licks
Welcome to this unabashed celebration of rock guitar. The aim of the lesson is to provide you with some core concepts and techniques which will help you build a really good vocabulary in a whole range of rock guitar styles.
The guitar is one of the key instruments in the rock ensemble; it provides much of the harmonic backing and of course is also used to play riffs, fills and solos. Some rock bands are three-piece outfits where the guitar provides the majority of the melodic and harmonic content. Other line-ups include guitar and keyboards working in tandem. Then there are twin-guitar assaults, either with or without keys. All these band types require subtly diffferent ways of interacting with the other musicians, and we will see many of these approaches in the following 50 licks.
Many of the greatest rock songs are written in guitar-friendly keys like G, A, E and D and this allows the guitarist to utilise various open strings and resonant, first-position chords. When creating riffs, lead lines and guitar solos the Major and Minor Pentatonic scales are a popular starting point, and many of our examples use these as their basis. Both of scales are constructed from five notes, with the intervals as follows:
“MANY OF THE GREATEST ROCK SONGS ARE WRITTEN IN GUITAR-FRIENDLY KEYS THAT ALLOW THE GUITARIST TO UTILISE VARIOUS OPEN STRINGS”
Major Pentatonic: R-2-3-5-6.
Minor Pentatonic: R- b 3-4-5- b 7.
The Major and Minor triad arpeggios are also commonly employed. Their intervals are:
Major triad arpeggio: R-3-5.
Minor triad arpeggio: R- b 3-5.
We can also use the full, seven-note Major and Minor scales and their associated modes, and of course the Major and Minor Blues scales (Minor Blues adds the b 5 to the Minor
