Alternate Picking Shred Lick with Tablature

Alternate picking is an essential technique for a lead guitar that wants to play shred lick fast and accurately. This post is designed to give you some insight into this technique and how it can be applied to shred licks.

I get the idea of this lick from the song Far Beyond The Sun by Yngwie Malmsteen. Is based on an F# harmonic minor, and at beginning of the lick, Yngwie Malmsteen plays the scale in groups of 4 notes.

Playing the scales in groups of 4 notes is an amazing exercise for improving your alternate picking. At the same time, you can develop a lot of phrases and ideas for your composition and improvisation.

I played an F# minor arpeggio on the last section of the lick using the sweep picking technique. I did this to give you guys an idea of how we can mix alternate picking with other techniques.

In my Skype guitar lessons, I always expand the licks and sequences in all different shapes of the scale. With different systems like 3 notes per string, and the caged system.

By doing it you’ll be able to see all the options and to play the lick everywhere at the fretboard.

How To Practice

The first step to practice this lick lesson is, memorize the entire lick and play slow. Make sure that you can hear all the notes when you play, just from that, you can start to speed that up.

Gear Used:

For this guitar lesson demonstration, I used :

• Fender Stratocaster 62 Reissue Japan
• Fractal Axe FX II XL+
• Reaper

I hope you guys enjoy it and let’s keep practicing.

Neoclassical Metal Guitar Lick

Neoclassical Metal Guitar Lick in F# Harmonic Minor Scale. For this lesson demonstration, I create this lick based on the idea that I learned from the song Far Beyond the Sun by Yngwie Malmsteen.

I strongly recommend you guys to check the album Rising Force by guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen, released on 5 March 1984.

Not just Yngwie Malmsteen but Al Di Meola, Ritchie Blackmore, Michael Schenker, and many others guitar players, have been using the same kind of pattern over the scales to create these baroque / neo-classical ideas.

The Technique – Alternate Picking

As you notice I play the lick using the alternate picking technique. Actually, the lick itself is an amazing exercise for improving your skills on the alternate picking technique.

Another thing you can do to improve your alternate picking technique, even more, is transposing the lick to the other shapes of the scale.

On my Skype Guitar Lessons. I used to teach my students how to improve a lick like that to the next level.

We work together to learn the lick, understand the pattern/sequences/fragment, and create a practice routine over the 7 shapes of the major/minor scale.

That helps a lot to internalize more the technique, and at the same time doing it will improve your ability to create your own licks and phrases to improvise, etc …

Gear Used On Metal Guitar Lick in F# Harmonic Minor Scale – Yngwie Malmsteen Joe Stump Style:

For this guitar lesson demonstration, I used :

• Fender Stratocaster 62 Reissue Japan
• Fractal Axe FX II XL+
• Reaper

I hope you guys enjoy that and let’s keep practicing.

Metal Shred Guitar Lick Tab Guitar Lesson

On this guitar lesson demonstration, you will learn how to play this Metal Shred Guitar Lick over the A Natural Minor Scale. The Lick itself is a great alternate picking exercise.

If the solo is too fast you can slow it down by selecting “settings” and selecting “playback speed”.

I hope you guys enjoy it.

Gear Used:

• Epiphone Les Paul Standard
• Fractal Axe FX II XL+
• Reaper