First riff: four bars over the Am vamp

A four-bar rock phrase from week 1-4 material: box 1, palm-muted fifths, and one bend.

Style
rock
Written in
A
Length
4 bars
Feel
straight
Tempo
♩=120

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: the riff

Fifths on the bottom two strings, palm muted, walking A5 to G5. This is the rhythm side you spent week 4 on — play it tight rather than fast.

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

Bars 3-4: the answer up top

Straight into box 1 with the whole-step bend from week 2. The contrast between the muted low riff and the ringing bend is the whole point.

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

Riff then lead, four bars, over the Am vamp. It is deliberately half rhythm: a rock player who can only solo is half a player, and week 4 was where the rhythm side arrived.

Palm mute the fifths so they are tight and percussive, then let the bend ring. If the two halves sound like the same dynamic, the riff is not muted enough.

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 4 of the rock path — the rhythm side (playing the form, not over it). 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