GUEST COLUMNIST:

DREW HAMLETT

Harmonic Minor Lick



This lick was inspired by the intro lick on Triology Suite Op 5 by Yngwie Malmsteen. The lick starts out on the C root note and runs through the C harmonic scale, using chromatic notes until it reaches the 5th in a C chord; the G. The lick works really well over a C power chord. The lick is pretty simple to do yet it really phrases the C chord alot, so that's what makes it so useful. I use economy picking, so I noted that in this lick, but use whatever your comfortable with. Be careful on timing, it's straight 16th notes. There's a tendency to want to do it with triplets. The first sound is the lick at 90 bpm. The 2nd is the lick at 190 bpm and the last is the 190 bpm lick over a C power chord so you hear how it sounds like that.