Adult Guitar Lessons

If you are in the early stages of learning to play lead guitar, you may have learned to play some scales and single note lead runs.

Things start to get a little more interesting when you can start to add in lead licks that are comprised of two notes played simultaneously.

Today we will look at a common blues riff built mainly on two note licks in the key of A. We will play these in the A minor pentatonic, or A "blues" scale, in the 5th fret position.

Here is the way it looks:

E-------5---5------------------------------

B-------5---5----7-----5------------------

G----------------7-----5---6h------------

D----------------------------------7------

A--------------------------------------------

E--------------------------------------------

1. As you can see, the riff starts on the 1st and 2nd string at the 5th fret. Play these two notes at the same time with the 1st finger.

2. Then just repeat that again.

3. Now, with the 3rd finger, play the notes on the 2nd and 3rd strings at the 7th fret.

4. Next, with the 1st finger, play the notes two frets down, on the same two strings (as above) at the 5th fret.

Now for the tricky part of the riff:

5. While the two notes from the previous step are sustaining, perform a "hammer-on" to the note on the 6th fret of the 3rd string, using the 2nd finger. The key to this part of the riff is that the note on the 5th fret of the 2nd string should continue to sustain as the hammer-on note is played on the 3rd string.

6. Finally, wrap up the riff with a single note on the 7th fret of the 4th string using the 3rd finger.

This riff is a very "Chuck Berry-esque" style lick that can be used in blues, rock and country songs.

It has been done a million times and there are limitless variations you can use to expand upon this theme.

Even though this example is shown in the key of "A", you could play this riff in any key, virtually anywhere on the guitar neck.

Play around with it and experiment with various keys. You will quickly find that this riff is one that - once learned - will become a regular part of your lead playing arsenal.

Enjoy!