50 Licks Greatest Hits Vol. 1

It is essential that you get some flash into your playing, after all we do play guitar don't we?!?! I am still a sucker for a guy who can rip it up. It may not be sexy but I can make one promise to you, if you practice your scales and licks with a metronome you will get better. No way around that simple truth and believe it or not it is a short cut to great chops. A friend once said to me “I know how all the great players became great. They practiced their butts off.” Truer words have never been spoken.

This is one of the coolest little moves, I never get tired of playing it or hearing it. I first heard it from Eric Johnson as many of us did I believe, then after hearing more Austin based players it seems it's in the water down there. The 3rd of a chord is really the most important, it tells us if the chord is major or minor. In the blues, we want the sound in between those two. Not quite the flat 3rd not quite the natural 3rd. That ambiguity is at the core of the blues. Here we are playing the b3rd and bending it up slightly almost to the natural 3rd while laying on the root an octave below.

Here's a meatier sound. You may use this the same way you may use lick 2. We are still bending the second in to the third of the chord. This time the root and the fifth are below the bent instead of above. The bend is not supported here either. You'll be surprised how often you can go to this sound.

Going all the way back to Lick #3, "Sugar Coo", we had our first encounter with the great Leroy "Sugarfoot" Bonner of the Ohio Players. While the lick itself was loaded with '50 Funk Licks You Must Know' prerequisites, technically speaking that was a primer compared to the incendiary riffage going on this one. Looking into Players defining hit, "Fire", you're about to put any fleet finger pentatonic chops to the test with this Cm jam.

This straight-ahead Bb jazz lick relies on chromatics and a firm control of rhythm. Notice how we continue to explore Charlie Christian's inclusion of the 6th, the use of chromatics, as well as the bounce between the b3rd to major 3rd. Play around with the tempo - this riff really swings at speed!

Dropping down the low E to massive sounding D allows you to play an earth shaking open D5 with no hands (look ma!). With your free hand raised to the sky, dig into this second installment of groove-alicious Dimebag riffs. This polyrhythmic excursion is from "Primal Concrete Sledge" from the groundbreaking Cowboys From Hell album that put Dime and Pantera on the map. What you have is groups of three 16th notes, but you're only playing the first two attacks. The real trick is this is superimposed over a 4/4 double kick-based groove at 140 bpm. How 'bout them apples?!