Metal Guitar Licks in the Key of A Minor

Video Transcript

"Okay, this is a neo-classical shred metal lick in the key of A minor. Guys like Ing Van Malmsteen and Vinnie Moore made this sound really popular in the mid-1980's. This uses pedal tone technique, so what that means is there's one note in a series of notes that keeps getting referred back to, all right. A drummer friend who likened this to the sound of somebody yodeling. So, I'm going to play this lick for you twice in a row and then I'll break it down. So, let's see first what it sounds like at regular speed, two, three, four. Okay, the note I'm going to keep referring to is this high A on the seventeenth fret of the high E string, and throughout the entire lick every time I play this note it's going to be an up stroke. All the other notes will be down strokes. So, I start on this A on the fourteenth of the G string, and get to our pedal tone here. Then, the next note is G on the fifteenth of the high E string, F on the thirteenth of the high E string. Then, the E on the twelfth. Then, the D on the fifteenth of the B, thirteenth of the B, twelfth of the B, and back to our original note here which ends it, and then it starts it again. And then, at the end we're going to get the G sharp, and then back to the A for the harmonic minor sound which is a minor scale with a raise seventh degree. Okay, let me play it with our backing track a couple times in a row, slow, and you can hear what it sounds like in context, three, four."