I’d like to share an incredible flatpicking style lick that can be used in countless songs and tunes. This is a phrase that opened up many doors for me as a flatpicking guitarist. Should you want to master this idea you will have to transpose these ideas into other keys and octaves. Each one of these variations showcases a different way of inventing the phrase. The ideas vary in length and note choice but are all based on this one idea. Once you work through the following variations I’m certain you will be able to come up with more of your own and find endless situations to use this classic phrase.
guitar licks
I know this is a big hurdle for bluegrass guitar players. We learn our first fiddle tune melodies, our first licks, our first runs and our first breaks in first position. So how do we demystify the rest of the neck so we can ascend and descend it freely? The good news is you probably don’t need to memorize every note on the fretboard. In fact, most guitar players are visualizing much smaller frameworks as they travel the neck.
I’m sure we’ve all seen more than one bluegrass instructional book in our day. You probably have a stack including a Hal Leonard something or other, maybe a book with Tony Rice hugging a guitar and probably some books you’d rather forget. Sadly these books probably don’t come off the shelf very often. Maybe they’re not as useful as you once thought they would be or they’re an example of…