The sequence in fours
Box 1 run in groups of four for the mechanical, relentless motion rock lead is built on.
- Style
- rock
- Written in
- A
- Feel
- straight
- Tempo
- ♩=126
- Length
- 1 bar
Numbers are the order you play them, so notes sharing a number sound together. Drop the tempo until it is clean, then bring it back up.
Written in A, and the writing below describes it there. Move it to another key and the shape does not change, only where its root sits — which is the difference between knowing a lick and knowing a fret number.
- 1A · string 6, fret 5
- 2C · string 6, fret 8
- 3D · string 5, fret 5
- 4E · string 5, fret 7
- 5C · string 6, fret 8
- 6D · string 5, fret 5
- 7E · string 5, fret 7
- 8G · string 4, fret 5
- 9D · string 5, fret 5
- 10E · string 5, fret 7
- 11G · string 4, fret 5
- 12A · string 4, fret 7
- 13G · string 4, fret 5vibrato
Instead of running the box straight up, take it four notes at a time and step back before going on. The internal repetition gives the line a momentum a plain scale run never has, and it is the most efficient way to make a pentatonic box stop sounding like a scale.
Strict alternate picking throughout, and watch the string changes — that is where the timing slips first. Get it clean at a tempo that feels slow before you push it.
Where this fits
This comes out of week 6 of the rock path — two notes at once, and mechanical motion. The week is where you learn the device; this page is where you come back to it once the week has rolled over.