Repeating Metal Licks

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Supercharge Your Rock & Metal Soloing With These Repeating Metal Licks

 

Scales and other tools are essential to create solos. But if you want to add excitement and interest to your style, you need to learn and/or create good licks. In this lesson I will show you 5 awesome repeating metal licks in the style of guitar gods like Dave Murray, Kirk Hammett, Dave Mustaine and others. This licks will bring your solos to life and make them sound terrific!

Here is what you will learn today:

  • Metal Lick 1 – Dave Murray style. It uses a repeating bending phrase on the G and B strings and ends it with a cool little E blues scale phrase and a string bending.
  • Metal Lick 2 – Dave Murray style. You will find a similar lick in the song ‘The Trooper’. Here we will use a bunch of notes taken from the minor pentatonic scale. After learning the shape of this lick, you can create some others starting from the minor pentatonic scale. Let your imagination fly!
  • Metal Lick 3 – Kirk Hammett style. You can find similar licks in ‘Fade To Black’ and ‘Enter Sandman’. In this awesome lick you will find notes from the E minor pentatonic scale and bending moves, using also some ascending patterns to climb up the guitar neck.
  • Metal Lick 4 – Kirk Hammett style. ‘Master of Puppets’ is like a hymn for metalheads! This lick is very similar to one Kirk uses in that mythic song. Nothing else to say, just go for it!
  • Metal Lick 4 – Dave Mustaine style. Here we are going to use a pattern and move it fret by fret until we finish the lick with a cool string bend.

With these amazing repeating metal licks you will add power and awesomeness to your metal solos and sound like some of the best guitar players in the metal scene!

 

Get my awesome ROCK GUITAR LICK BUNDLE with full TAB and notation for this video lesson and more!

Play repeating metal licks in the style of guitar greats like Dave Murray of Iron Maiden, Kirk Hammett of Metallica, Dave Mustaine of Megadeth and others. In this guitar lesson I’ll show you how to play 5 repeating metal licks so you can slip them into your guitar solos and kick your guitar soloing up a gear.

Here’s a breakdown of this lesson:

0:15 Hear me solo using some of the repeating metal licks you’re going to learn in this lesson. You might recognise some of them from the playing of metal guitar legends like Dave Murray, Dave Mustaine, Kirk Hammett, Dimebag Darrell, Kerry King and others!

1:02 All these repeating licks are in the key of E minor and use the E minor pentatonic scale and the E blues scale with a few other notes added in at times.

1:11 Repeating Metal Lick 1 – Dave Murray Style
Pretty much all the rock and metal guitar legends play repeating licks like this, Iron Maiden’s Dave Murray is no exception. It’ll sound great slipped into your rock solos! It uses a repeating bending phrase which Dave plays on the G and B strings. Notice how he changes the rhythm to alter the feel of the lick. Finally he ends it with a cool little E blues scale phrase.

4:06 Repeating Metal Lick 2 – Dave Murray
This lick is similar to a lick Dave Murray plays in ‘The Trooper’. It’s using a cool little collection of notes which you can ‘add onto’ the E minor pentatonic scale to get higher up the neck. Dave Murray plays a 1 bar lick which he plays 3 times. Here I’ve added on the double stop bends section – another favourite Murray device showing his Jimi Hendrix influence!

8:23 Repeating Metal Lick 3 – Kirk Hammett Style
This repeating lick is from the playing of Kirk Hammett. Check out his solos in ‘Fade To Black’ and ‘Enter Sandman’ to hear him play some ideas like this. The first part of the lick is from the E minor pentatonic scale and uses some of Kirk’s favourite bending moves. He then uses some ascending patterns to climb up the guitar neck. These simple shapes can be added on to your minor pentatonic shape to make up your own ideas – so experiment! Get the pull off patterns in time and clear here and watch you are ‘rolling’ your first finger to seperate out the notes and keep them clean.

13:03 Repeating Metal Lick 4 – Kirk Hammett
Listen to ‘Master of Puppets’ to hear Kirk play a lick like this!
It’s using some triplet pull off patterns from the minor pentatonic scale plus an added note at the 13th fret B string. The lick then moves into a fast tremolo picked line which descends the neck before ending on a bend. Watch your picking hand is loose, relaxed and near the strings as you tremolo pick. This will help you get it up to speed with a bit of practice.

16:20 Repeating Metal Lick 5 – Dave Mustaine
This repeating lick is like something Mustaine plays in ‘Holy Wars’.
It’s simply a repeating pentatonic pattern which is repeated and moved up in 1 fret intervals as it’s played. Even though some of the notes might sound a little ‘out’, the lick creates an exciting ‘climbing’ sound which resolves on the final bend. Persevere with the stretch here – it might take a little practice if you haven’t played a lick like this before. Copy the fingering I use in the lesson – it works well!

Remember to practice USING these licks. Don’t just learn them and not use them! Play them over a backing track to absorb them into your playing. Also take them to pieces and try to find ways to ‘reassemble’ them into licks of your own.

Get my awesome ROCK GUITAR LICK BUNDLE with full TAB and notation for this video lesson and more!


 



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