I created this blog to share interesting guitar ideas that I stumble upon when playing or things that worked well for me whilst learning to play. I hope that by sharing them I can inspire other guitar players to come up with new ideas of their own.
This lick could easily fit into a jazz or blues style, especially depending on where you add emphasis. It's a pretty basic one, but starts off with a nice chromatic run. Throwing in chromaticism can make your blues sound a bit more complex, as it gives it a little more of a jazz feel. Hope this sparks some creativity!
The two phrases shown above incorporate open strings along with notes played on higher positions on the fretboard. This can create a really neat sound, and often works well with the notes in the 5th fret position (as the open strings are near them in pitch). Try playing around with this licks and creating your own new phrases.
It can be fun to figure out little runs like above (play it and you should recognize it) as a way to work on your ear. Familiar phrases like this one help to expand your guitar vocabulary, and often will be usable when you least expect them (even if just for comedic effect).
This dominant lick is centered around playing over a G7 chord. Many players will incorporate the major third via slides, hammer-ons or bends from the minor third, however, it can sound neat to remove the minor third entirely and just stick with the major. In this case our G minor pentatonic scale changes by just one note (replacing Bb with B), but opens up a neat new sound to play around with.
This is a fairly typical sounding descending jazz lick, which incorporates some passing tones and a slide as it goes down. Licks like these are a good start as you get into jazz because they can be a great way to get ideas for lines of your own.
