Pentatonic Licks - Volume 1
Pentatonic Lick #1 - Here is a great lick using the B minor blues scale. Unusual subdivisions, combined with hammer ons and slides in the first bar lead up to a massive Minor 3rd bend and a bluesy finish. This lick is great for getting your fingers moving after some time off and is a great workout for the hands.
Pentatonic Lick #2 - This lick has an unusual start on the and of the first beat, and can make the feel tricky to get at first but is good practice. The second half of the first measure uses a quasi-chromatic riff that leads into a legato bluesy feel for the second half. Bar #2 can be played with hybrid picking to great effect.
Pentatonic Lick #3 - This lick follows a fairly straightforward pattern but is deceptively hard to play cleanly and with tight rhythm. The second half of this lick starts with alternate picking a sort of syncopated harmonic pattern, culminating in a screeching pinch harmonic bend to the blue note and legato cascading triplets descend to the finish line. This can be practiced in any pentatonic position.
Pentatonic Lick #4 - This is a cool Petrucci inspired lick that is challenging but musically extremly satisfying. This lick starts using a dorian-blues flavored pentatonic scale using triplets to excite the rhythm. The third measure is perhaps the most daunting, tricky alternate picking combined with unusual fingerings. Use the left hand pattern here of 1-3-1-3--2-1-3-2--1-3-2-1--1-3-1-3. This will allow clean playing without creating unusual bars. Take care to land accurately on the open string pull-offs at the end and provide a sultry vibrato at the end.
Pentatonic Lick #5 - This is a fantastic legato workout utilizing ascending open string hammer-on's climbing to the top of the mountain, only to be brought right back down with a thunderous 2-note per string lick to a bluesy bend at the bottom. This lick is great to learn to traverse the fretboard, and still make a coherant musical morsel.
Pentatonic Lick #6 - This lick is actually deceptively cool, and is best played repeated a few times, This lick outlines an Em - B7 - Em chord progression and is a great example of how to mix melodious playing and shredding.
Pentatonic Lick #7 - Heading to the key of Bb minor, we encounter a sort of backwards direction sequence followed by an epic alternate picked blues scale. Notice the open E string as the blue note in Bb minor, and is actually spelled as an Fb!
Pentatonic Lick #7 - This is a nice, bluesy lick that meanders through F# dorian and lands on the picardy third. This is a great practice for string bending as well as double stops. This lick is also best practiced repeated.
