This is a cool shreddy lick that's somewhat Van Halen inspired, although loads of shred guitarists use it. It gives you a rolling, almost infinite note sort of sound, because the same note appears twice in a row on two different strings. As you get faster it starts to sound a bit trippy, in quite a cool way.
It doesn't need to be super clean, either. As you speed up, that controlled chaos sound can really work.
The notes ▶ 0:52
I'm playing in D minor here, mainly because I'm in drop D and I felt like it. The lick only uses the B and high e strings, though, so the tuning doesn't matter, and you can move it to any key.
The notes are simple: 10, 13 and 15 on the B string, then the same three frets on the high e string. Then you walk back down through the same notes.
e|-----------10-13-15-13-10-----------| B|--10-13-15----------------15-13-10--| G|------------------------------------| D|------------------------------------| A|------------------------------------| E|------------------------------------|
The 15th fret on the B string and the 10th fret on the high e are the same note, D. That's what gives you two of the same note in a row, and it's where the rolling sound comes from. The notes are A, C, D on the B string and D, F, G on the high e, all in the D minor scale.
That's all the lick is. Once you've got the notes, you just start to build speed.
Picking and legato as you speed up ▶ 1:34
As it gets faster, I bring in more legato. If I could pick it faster, I would, but the legato also changes the feel in an interesting way as you play through it.
Here's how I do it:
- Pick every note on the way up, across both strings.
- On the way down, pick the 15th fret on the high e and pull off twice, to the 13th and then the 10th.
- Then pick the three notes back down the B string.
You can go further with the legato if you like. Use the same pick, pull off, pull off on the B string as well. Or go further still and play almost all of it with hammer-ons on the way up.
Ending on the root ▶ 2:12
I end the lick with a slide from the 13th to the 15th fret on the B string, because that lands on the root note, D. It's a nice way to round it off.
e|----------| B|--13/15---| G|----------| D|----------| A|----------| E|----------|
Moving it around the neck ▶ 2:20
To move this lick, find anywhere in the key you're playing in where the last note on the lower string is the same as the first note on the higher string.
You can also do it on other string pairs. For example, still in D minor, I play 10, 12 and 15 on the A string, then 10, 12 and 15 on the D string. The 15th fret on the A string and the 10th fret on the D string are both C, so you get the same overlap.
e|---------------------| B|---------------------| G|---------------------| D|-----------10-12-15--| A|--10-12-15-----------| E|---------------------|
If you're not sure where these notes are, the Fretboard Navigator will show you the scale across the neck. See if you can find this lick in a few different places, get it rolling slowly first, then push the speed and let a bit of that chaos in.
