Guitarists: legato licks?

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Metaltastic

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Feb 20, 2005
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Hey guys, I really love soloing, but one thing I've always been weak on is creating those long legato licks (mainly the descending ones). So...help? :D They often seem to involve tapping, but I've seen some awesome ones being played where it's all just in the left hand with occasional pick attacks at the note transitions. Really, the guy who embodies EXACTLY the style of this type of playing for me is George Lynch, so some of his licks would be awesome! (Mark, I hope you read this ;))
 
You mean something like this? :)




Well, George Lynch I am not. There's no way in hell I can do those crazy, monster interval stretches he does! But for some of the more normal legato runs, whether ascending or descending (and without tapping...which he also does at times), it's basically pick the first note on the string, hammer-on/pull-off the next two notes, change string and pick first note...blah blah....you get the picture. Or variations of this kind of thing. My picking incredibly sucks, so I've always relied on this type of technique. Hope that's at least a little bit of help. I'm fighting off a bad flu and not very coherent at the moment.

(By the way, I may have some tracks for you very soon)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Metaltastic said:
Hey guys, I really love soloing, but one thing I've always been weak on is creating those long legato licks (mainly the descending ones). So...help? :D They often seem to involve tapping, but I've seen some awesome ones being played where it's all just in the left hand with occasional pick attacks at the note transitions. Really, the guy who embodies EXACTLY the style of this type of playing for me is George Lynch, so some of his licks would be awesome! (Mark, I hope you read this ;))
Click to expand...

Do you mean weak as in your actually technique, or not being able to string together something nice sounding?

P.S Our own James Murphy is pretty well known for long legato licks, so check out some of his leads as well.
 
Legato is my bag. Heavily influenced by dime, and satch later on, I realised why. I also like loomis' use of legato and picking to accentuate his blindingly fast runs.
 
Hmm, guess I'm not making myself clear - I mean licks like at the end of Fredrik's solo in "Heir Apparent" (at around 3:17), with that drawn out fast legato lick; I guess my technique isn't perfect on it cuz I haven't been able to practice it, but what I'm saying is I don't know any good lixx to play that would develop it :) However, I did find a fucking AWESOME website that any of you 80s guys are gonna love - check out www.guitarshredshow.com, and click on "The Mountain of Tapping Dwarves;" the guy is definitely a blatant ripoff of EVH and Vai, but he can shred his nuts off, and on that page you can hit any of the a-z keys for a different lick and tabs - some of the best legato licks that exemplify what I mean are "i," "u," and the last lick in "b." So those help, but something more evil and metal would be nice!

And Mark, he seems to be mostly picking in that vid (and god what a goofy right hand :lol: ), but thanks all the same, cool to see the man wail! And I can't wait to hear those tracks! :)
 
Being able to shift positions with a nice little 3 finger legato move is what makes licks like that really work in my opinion.

Practice something like this on the E string:

7-8-10-8-7\5-7-8-7-5/7-8-10-8-7\5-7-8-7-5

Over and over until you can do it cleanly at light speed, sliding between positions where the slashes are, but don't pick anything.

Then work on different patterns with a similar position shift on adjacent strings, like this on the B:

5-6-8-6-5/6-8-10-8-6\5-6-8-6-5/6-8-10

And this on the G:

4-5-7-5-4/5-7-9-7-5\4-5-7-5-4/5-7-9

And once you can do moves like that fast and precise, start stringing them together and ascending across several strings.
 
Thanks Metalhead, I've been sawing away at those for a few minutes now, and it seems a really useful chops-builder!
 
Another question - when you're doing a three-note-per-string pattern with whole steps between each note, do you use your first, middle, and pinky fingers, or first, ring, and pinky? I'm having a tough time deciding which is less awkward
 
Metaltastic said:
Another question - when you're doing a three-note-per-string pattern with whole steps between each note, do you use your first, middle, and pinky fingers, or first, ring, and pinky? I'm having a tough time deciding which is less awkward
Click to expand...

First, middle and pinky usually.

Been playing a shit load generally with first, ring and pink though just to build strength. Paul Gilbert plays pretty much everything with first, ring and pinky.
 
Yeah, it's tough, cuz I feel faster with my middle, but I fucking hate the stretch from my first when I use it, the ring feels much more natural but isn't as fast, so I'm not sure whether I should work on the stretch of the middle or the speed of the ring...
 
john petrucci has a pretty good legato video similar to marks somewhere on youtube..

i know its off his old rock dvd..

guthrie govan has alot my most favorite legato licks. they also involve some tapping.
 
for what it's worth i always go 1st middle pinky, it always seemed much more natural and faster.
Then again i'm a violin player as well (and was for many years before i started guitar) so that's probably affected things a lot for me as the ring and pinky dont tend to go too far away from each other on the violin
 
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