For this lesson I wanted to give you a shape that is super easy to remember but still sounds really cool. The three-string pattern that we will be looking at in this lesson will give you the freedom to make up your own licks without having to think too much about shapes or scales. You can think of the shape as being in A minor or A blues. The basic lick that I came up with in the lesson is pretty common in blues, rock and shred soloing.
This shape is pretty easy to memorize because it repeats the exact same fret pattern on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd strings. Start off by playing the 5th fret of the 3rd string with your 1st finger, 7th fret of the 3rd string with your 3rd finger and 8th fret of the 3rd string with your 4th finger. Those are the notes that you will be using on the 3rd string. These three notes are found in the A blues scale. You can either pick each note or use hammer-ons.
Move to the 2nd string and play the 5th, 7th and 8th frets on that string using the same fingers. Finally, move to the 1st string and play the 5th, 7th and 8th frets on that string. That’s the entire pattern. The notes on the 1st and 2nd strings are all notes found in an A Dorian scale. Go up and down all of these notes on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd strings until you feel comfortable with the flow of the pattern. Once you can play through the pattern fluently try to mix up the notes and make up your own licks.
Try recording an A minor or a power chord over and over. Play it the chord back and see how many licks you can come up with using just this pattern. This isn’t too difficult or flashy but that is really the beauty of this shape. You can rock out and not have to worry too much about shapes, right notes or technique.
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