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to Tom Hesswho made the difficult easyand the impossible merelydifficult

and

to Byron Markswho showed me Lick 58thus starting this all.

Tommaso Zillio

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CONTENTS

Contents ii

1 Introduction 11.1 Notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2 Blues Progressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.3 Scales Used . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.4 The Blues Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.5 Sweep Picking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41.6 How to Study This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2 Arpeggios 62.1 Standard Arpeggios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62.2 Modified Arpeggios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92.3 Repeating Licks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

3 Scales 193.1 Pentatonic/Blues Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193.2 Other Scales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

4 Concatenations and Hybrid Licks 234.1 Simple Concatenations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234.2 Complex Concatenations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

5 Turnarounds 335.1 Major (Dominant) Blues Turnaround . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335.2 Minor Blues Turnaround . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

6 Diminished Licks 386.1 Diminished Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386.2 Diminished Symmetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406.3 Diminished Arpeggio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

7 Superlocrian (altered) Licks 447.1 Superlocrian scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447.2 Arpeggios from the Superlocrian scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

End Notes 49

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CH

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1INTRODUCTION

All the licks in this book are written in the key of A. All the theory is explained by assumingwe are on the key of A too. This is to facilitate the study of the various options without theconfusion of changing key every lick. Of course all the licks can be transposed in any keyyou wish just by moving them up or down on the fretboard.

1.1 Notation

The numbers above the score are the fingers on your left hand to use when playing (1 =index, 2 = middle, 3 = ring, 4 = pinky). The symbols below the tab indicate the pickingdirection: downward for the squarish symbol and upward for the wedge.

1.2 Blues Progressions

A complete examination of Blues chord progressions is out of the scope of that book —simply, there are too may variations to be considered. Let’s say that to get you started youneed to know the following chord progressions (one chord symbol = one bar):

Major (dominant) Blues:

A7 A7 A7 A7D7 D7 A7 A7E7 D7 A7 A7

Minor Blues:

Am Am Am AmDm Dm Am AmEm Dm Am Am

Both chords progressions are 12 bars long. They are arranged in three rows of four barsbecause they are easier to memorize this way. These are the chords progressions used in

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2 Introduction

the included backing tracks labeled as “simple”. A couple of more complicate (and tastier)chord progression will be taken into account later in the chapter “Turnarounds”.

1.3 Scales Used

A Variety of scales may be used when soloing on a Blues. Here I show some of the possibleoptions that we will encounter later. If you want to know more about scales and the theorybehind it your best option is to find a knowledgeable teacher that can help you. Whilethere are many books that show you the patterns of all the scales ever invented by man,there is a shortage of instructionals showing you why and when you should be using acertain scale.

For now, do not be frightened by the names of the scales I show. Everything you needto do to get started is to play them on the backing tracks included and to pay attention tohow they sound.

The most used scale is by far the Minor Pentatonic scale. !5

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Both the Minor Pentatonic and the Blues scale work equally well on either a major orminor blues.

A different possibility is to use modal scales such as the Dorian scale (best on minorblues but works on major too):

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1.4. The Blues Sound 3

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As you can see, these scales are all very similar and overlap considerably. I suggest thatyou spend some time comparing them and taking note of the similarities and differencesamong them. If you do that, it will be easier to memorize them and use them later inimprovisation.

1.4 The Blues Sound

To sound genuinely “bluesy” it is not enough to just play a certain scale over a certainbacking track. Blues is particular among all the other types of music for the preponder-ance of phrasing elements into it. With “Phrasing” I mean all the tricks such as: bending,vibrato, hammer-ons, pull offs, slides, etc. Every good Blues player takes special care toapply such tricks extensively on his solos: how they do it is what makes their style.

Wile this book is not specifically about phrasing, I encourage you to try and play thelicks included here “with feeling”. I have not indicated all the possible phrasing tricks (ex-cept for some slides and legato) because their application is largely dependent on yourpersonal taste. Some people will like to end some licks with a note with vibrato, otherswill perform a bend or slide down along the string. The point I want to make is: do not beafraid to modify the licks to make them more your own.

A last note about the notation of the licks. While I had to decide on a specific rhythmfeeling for each of the licks presented here, each lick can in fact be played faster (withtriplets of 16th notes rather than in triplets of 8th notes as most of them are notated) orslower, with the accent displaced (i.e. with different notes on the strong beat), etc. Most

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4 Introduction

licks have also been notated with all the notes of the same length, but I suggest you exper-iment in playing some notes faster and other slower to fit the mood of the music you wantto play. Keep in mind the idea behind the lick and do not become too fixated on how theyare written here — every time I improvise I play them in a different way. Look at the moon,not at the finger.

If you are curious about the topic of phrasing and would like some help to develop yourstyle, I recommend checking out the excellent series of books by my friend Nick Layton.Nick has done an incredible work on that series and you won’t find the material in hisbooks anywhere else on the net. You can find them at:http://tomhess.net/PhrasingConcepts.aspx

1.5 Sweep Picking

To put it simply, sweep picking a picking technique that exploits the fact that when you areplaying more than one string you can use with a single picking movement that hits all thestrings involved rather than “alternate pick” them. While many hair metal shredders pop-ularized the technique with uber-complicated 6-strings arpeggios, sweep picking workseven with just two strings. The key point is to arrange your picking patterns so that whenyou change the string you are playing on, your pick keeps going on the same direction.

To make an example, let’s examine Lick 22:

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As you can see, the second and third notes in this lick are both played with an upstroke.In fact both notes are played with a single “sweeping” movement of the pick. After that,there are two notes played with a downstroke: again both notes are played with a fluiddownward movement of the pick. In this book the picking direction is indicated, so all youhave to do is to follow the indications. You need not worry about arranging the patterns: Idid all the work for you already.

A complete explanation of the technique of sweep picking would be too long for thepresent book. I will refer you to “The Ultimate Sweep Picker’s Guide”, a book and DVD

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1.6. How to Study This Book 5

by my friends Zack Uidl and Mike Philippov that explains all the ins and outs of sweeppicking. You can find it at the following link: http://thenextstepguitar.com/sweep.html

1.6 How to Study This Book

This book has been written so that to allow different approaches to the material contained.The chapters are roughly organized in the order of increasing difficulty. I’m not talkingonly technical difficulty here: some categories of licks are inherently harder to use in im-provisation (even if they sound really really good once you are able to pull them off!). Thismeans that if you are a beginner, or you would like a gradual approach, you are probablybetter off following the book step-by-step.

On the other hand, none of the chapters absolutely require that you have read theprevious ones. If you are so inclined you can jump straight to the middle or end of thebook and try the more advanced solos. The last two chapters require a knowledge ofwhat an altered chord is. You can find a short explanation in Chap. 2 under “Minor BluesTurnarounds”.

A good idea would be to listen to the mp3 files included so that you can identify thelicks that you like more and learn them first. This approach work best if you are already aseasoned improviser and want to integrate some new ideas into your playing.

I strongly suggest not to play through half the book without trying to use the licks inpractice. The best way to learn and retain information is to earn 1-2 licks at a time, then tryto use them in a free-form improvisation over the backing tracks included. In this impro-visation you can use whatever you want and whatever you can already do, but your maingoal is to try to splice in the licks you just learned as much as you can. the solo may comeout repetitive and boring at the beginning, but your mind and your fingers will start to seewhat they can do with that lick in a real musical situation. Do not wait until you can playthe lick fast to do this. I suggest you try to use the lick in a backing track as soon as youhave an idea of how to play through it, no matter how slow or sloppy. You can iron outimperfections later.

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4.2. Complex Concatenations 31

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Lick 65:Sometimes paying too much attention to theory may hinder your creativity. Here we takea D7 arpeggio and we just move the same pattern up string-wise. All the notes played areeither in the Dorian scale or the Blues scale, and the lick sounds nice!

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Lick 66:A Cmaj7, followed by a D7 and then a descending sweep on the blues scale.

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Lick 67:A fragment of Blues scale, an A7 arpeggio and an F!m arpeggio.

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40 Diminished Licks

6.2 Diminished Symmetry

To explore the symmetry of the Diminished scale we take the scale fragment in Lick 78 andwe play it in all the possible positions of the fretboard. Since the Diminished scale is usedto create dissonance, it is important to finish the lick by resolving on a “right” note, or onan arpeggio consonant with the next chord.

Lick 81:This is the same position as Lick 78. The lick end on a A note, so the next chord may be anAm7 as notated, but it may also be an A7.

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Lick 82:Now we move the same pattern 3 frets higher. This time we resolve the dissonance byplaying some fragments of an A arpeggio.

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$Lick 83:The same pattern moved up by other 3 frets. As is is, this licks resolves on A7. If you wantto make it work resolving on an Am7 the last note should be not a C! as it is now but a C(at the 13th fret of the 2nd string).

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END NOTES

Quotes

Hear what the Pros are saying about "101 Sweep Picking Licks for Blues Guitar":

“For those who want to build an explosive vocabulary of killer blues phrases and simul-taneously achieve ridiculous sweep picking chops I highly recommend Tommaso’s book101 Sweep Picking Licks for Blues Guitar. This book will keep you inspired and motivatedfor years to come!”

Nick Layton, Professional guitarist and author.(http://tomhess.net/GuitarLicksLesson.aspx)

“101 Sweep Picking Licks for Blues Guitar is a no-nonsense book packed full of usefulinformation. Most instructional products today seem to be filled with material to reacha particular page number and sacrifice quality while doing this. Not this product! It getsright to the point and delivers comprehensive information that is valuable for any guitaristwhether they play blues or not. Excellent work Tommaso!!”

Zack Uidl, Professional guitarist and author(www.zackuidl.com ; www.paramountmusicacademy.com)

“The first book of its kind to cover an innovative approach to blues playing is here.Tommaso does a great job of breaking down and integrating a common metal guitar tech-nique into the structure of the blues style, enabling guitarists to play blues with the highestlevels of creativity and expression. Fans of Eric Johnson, Guthrie Govan, Scott Hendersonand Frank Gambale will find a lot of awesome ideas from this book to expand upon theirstock blues licks and phrasing ideas and take their blues soloing to a much higher level.”

Mike Philippov, Professional guitarists and author(http://mikephilippov.com ; http://thenextstepguitar.com)

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50 End Notes

About the Author

http://www.tommasozillio.comhttp://www.edmontonguitar.com

Tommaso is a prog rock/metal guitarist,composer, and teacher based in Edmonton,AB, Canada. He has been playing guitar since1992, on and off stage, both solo and with avariety of bands. In 2009 he released, togetherwith other 13 artists, the compilation CD “Un-der the Same Sky”, distributed worldwide in10.000 copies.

Tommaso collaborates regularly as a col-umn author with websites such as metalgui-tarlessons.net, ultimate-guitar.com, cyber-fret.com, insaneguitar.com and guitar9.com.

Tommaso’s influences are very varied, ex-pressing the love of music that transcendsgenera and instruments. Some of his fa-vorite musicians are: Dream Theater, PinkFloyd, Joe Satriani, Andy Timmons, Mike Old-field, Jean-Michel Jarre, Deine Lakaien, Lit-fiba, Nightwish, Astor Piazzolla, Hans Zim-mer.

Tommaso is a graduate of the Tom Hess’s Music Career Mentoring Program and EliteGuitar Teachers Inner Circle.

Tommaso is a proud endorser of AMT Electronics, the best distortion pedals on theplanet. His choice pedals are the SS-20 and the DT-2.

©2010 Tommaso Zillio - All Rights Reserved.

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