Eight bars over the Am vamp

Eight bars of rock lead from week 1-8 material: legato, a sequence, a unison bend and a resolution.

Style
rock
Written in
A
Length
8 bars
Feel
straight
Tempo
♩=126

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. Each section has its own play button — learn them one at a time.

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.

Bars 1-2: legato opening

Week 3's legato, with the pick used once per string and everything else hammered or pulled. Starting smooth means the picked attack later has somewhere to arrive from.

  1. 1G · string 4, fret 5
  2. 2A · string 4, fret 7hammer-on
  3. 3C · string 3, fret 5
  4. 4D · string 3, fret 7hammer-on
  5. 5E · string 2, fret 5
  6. 6G · string 2, fret 8hammer-on
  7. 7A · string 1, fret 5
  8. 8A · string 1, fret 5
  9. 9G · string 2, fret 8
  10. 10E · string 2, fret 5pull-off
  11. 11D · string 3, fret 7
  12. 12C · string 3, fret 5
  13. 13A · string 4, fret 7vibrato

Bars 3-4: the sequence

Week 6's groups of four, hard-picked. The switch from legato to strict alternate picking is a dynamic change as much as a technical one.

  1. 1D · string 5, fret 5
  2. 2E · string 5, fret 7
  3. 3G · string 4, fret 5
  4. 4A · string 4, fret 7
  5. 5E · string 5, fret 7
  6. 6G · string 4, fret 5
  7. 7A · string 4, fret 7
  8. 8C · string 3, fret 5
  9. 9G · string 4, fret 5
  10. 10A · string 4, fret 7
  11. 11C · string 3, fret 5
  12. 12D · string 3, fret 7
  13. 13E · string 2, fret 5vibrato
  14. 14A · string 1, fret 5
  15. 15G · string 2, fret 8
  16. 16A · string 1, fret 5
  17. 17G · string 2, fret 8vibrato

Bars 5-6: the unison bend

Week 8's unison bend, twice. If it sounds sour rather than thick, the bend has stopped short of the fretted note above it.

  1. 1E · string 2, fret 5 + D · string 3, fret 7bend to fret 9
  2. 2E · string 2, fret 5 + D · string 3, fret 7bend to fret 9
  3. 3C · string 1, fret 8
  4. 4A · string 1, fret 5
  5. 5G · string 2, fret 8
  6. 6E · string 2, fret 5vibrato

Bars 7-8: home

Straight down the box to the root. After six bars of motion the plain descent is the release, and the piece needs one.

  1. 1A · string 1, fret 5
  2. 2G · string 2, fret 8
  3. 3E · string 2, fret 5
  4. 4D · string 3, fret 7
  5. 5C · string 3, fret 5
  6. 6A · string 4, fret 7vibrato

Two cycles of the vamp, eight bars, drawing only on weeks 1-8. It is built as a technique tour on purpose: legato, then picking, then bending, then rest.

The hard part is the dynamics rather than the notes. If the legato and the sequence come out at the same volume the piece has no shape, and the unison bend has nothing to be louder than.

The vocabulary it uses

None of this is new material. Every phrase here is a lick from earlier in the path, arranged — which is the argument the piece exists to make: a solo is vocabulary in an order, not a separate talent.

Where this fits

This caps week 8 of the rock path — stealing licks by ear. Learn it fixed and from memory: playing the same thing twice on purpose is a harder discipline than improvising, and it is the one thing you finish the path able to show someone.

Start today's sessionAll licks