# Generic, must-know shred riffs?



## thedonutman (Dec 19, 2007)

So guys, what are your favorite riffs, when it comes to the most generic, over-used licks and patterns?

I need licks that make me feel like I can shred 

Here is an example of what I mean:
YouTube - Meaningless Guitar Shred.

Its not very musical, its not very melodic, and it doesn't really have any overall shape.

Or the licks this guy demoing the Tone Zone plays towards the end.
YouTube - Dimarzio Pickup Review - ToneZone & Paf

I guess what I mean is patterns that you can just play over and over again, moving up and down the neck. Or those ascending/decending patterns that go all the way up/down the neck.

It seems everyone knows these generic licks, but I don't


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## Jongpil Yun (Dec 19, 2007)

Ascend four notes of a scale. Go down three. Ascend four. Harmonic minor is good for this.

Sweep your basic 1, b3, 5, or 1, 3, 5 and tap + slide the last two or three notes.

Really it's just all about putting together patterns with scale intervals. I thinks this video Troy Grady - Guitarist should help you a lot because it's a dissection of an off-the-cuff shred solo by Batio that IMO really blows and can't get any more generic.

Anyways, in that first example I liked the melody in a lot of places but like you're saying, there isn't any overall pattern because it's just a collection of licks.


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## telecaster90 (Dec 19, 2007)

Try the 2nd solo in Mr. Crowley (the arpeggios) or the one part from Paginini's 5th Caprice


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## Bound (Dec 19, 2007)

If you're looking for said patterns you should check out "Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar" it's got a whole bunch of said licks, plus it'll really improve your playing... 

not that I'm ultimate shred or anything, but it certainly helped my playing...

and it's good to see another Ashdown player around! that's rep worthy!


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## eleven59 (Dec 19, 2007)

Eruption.


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## distressed_romeo (Dec 21, 2007)

Get Paul Gilbert's 'Intense Rock Complete' DVD. There're plenty of licks in there which are virtually standard rock guitar vocabulary now. In addition, try practicing scales in groups of three, four and six, and practice playing arpeggios cycling in fifths. Oh, and another vote for 'Eruption'.


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## guitarplayerone (Dec 30, 2007)

eleven59 said:


> Eruption.



I'll have to disagree with that one completely. It's blasphemy but I'll go out on a limb and say that Eddie Van Halen has absolutely nothing on modern shred guitarists. Eddie Van Halen was about pentatonics and trying to tap wildly. Modern shred guitar is much more sophisticated and requires a very precise understanding of Classical or Jazz music theory, if not both (not that they are mutually exclusive in the first place, just different styles for different folks). For the record, im not familiar with all of his work, but the renditions of Eruption I have heard, honestly, (especially the live ones) hurt my ears. I think Pagannini, Vivaldi and Bach have much more of an influence on, say Malmsteen, Gilbert, Cooley, and Romeo than Eddie Van Halen.

It's much more important to learn your music theory, chord construction, scales etc. If you already have the chops, and are just looking for some sequences or arpeggios, then that will come out of theory very naturally, and so will the fingerings.

Something I did, which I consider very vital is I take 5-string sweeps and I practice up and down something like C major

What I do is I take every single chord in C major and turn it into a five-string arpeggio. This can be done with added tones too (recently started working on my three-string swept group 9th arpeggios for this) or with any amount of strings or octaves. If this is brand new to you, use one-octave three-string sweeps just to understand the idea of the exercise. extra notes are good to practice in context, but don't change the fundamental nature of this exercise.

and if you arent familiar with the notes on the fretboard, just play these chords, and then play the arpeggio that sounds like the same chord over them. I use the D major fingerings, modified into minor and diminished for all of these arpeggios.

You can ascend, and switch on the high E string, or Ascend, descend, and go back up again into every new arpeggio. The point is that you are following every chord, and they each have a function in a song. You will start seeing quickly how often you hear jumps such as G Major to C major To F to G to C. That would be a V I IV V I progression which is very common in many songs. It sounds likea ton of theory, the point is if you do this exercise, you will hear this for yourself. Additionally, this allows you to actually play melodies with arps, as opposed to showing someone 20 different ways of playing E minor and how tapping 9ths and 7ths makes you sound cool.

CMaj Dmin Emin FMaj Gmaj Amin Bdim CMaj (an octave up)

Doing something like this will make it possible for you to follow chord progressions with your sweeps, and makes analyzing (and learning how to play) things like 'Under the Influence' or 'Riders' by Rusty Cooley very easy. Malmsteen becomes a breeze to understand, as well as Michael Romeo etc, (even though not nessecarily easy to play if you dont have the chops)

The same can be applied for scales, use an open pedal tone (such as the low E string) and play some common scales over it. Some cool ones to try are E harmonic minor, E major, E lydian, E mixolydian, E phrygian, E phrygian dominant, etc. Make sure you understand every single mode of the major scale and then start learning harmonic minor's modes (such as phrygian dominant).

If you have these two fundamental things under your belt, you will automatically be better than 75 percent of the people that I see trying to shred out there.

as far as your origional question, everyone, even Rusty Cooley, rips off of Paul Gilbert's intense rock. If you dont want to buy it, im sure there are parts of it on youtube, etc. Everyone rips off of Paul Gilbert and Malmsteen at some point in the game, so you wont go wrong by learning all of their sigature licks...


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## lambofhowe (Dec 31, 2007)

guitarplayerone said:


> I'll have to disagree with that one completely. It's blasphemy but I'll go out on a limb and say that Eddie Van Halen has absolutely nothing on modern shred guitarists. Eddie Van Halen was about pentatonics and trying to tap wildly. Modern shred guitar is much more sophisticated and requires a very precise understanding of Classical or Jazz music theory, if not both (not that they are mutually exclusive in the first place, just different styles for different folks). For the record, im not familiar with all of his work, but the renditions of Eruption I have heard, honestly, (especially the live ones) hurt my ears. I think Pagannini, Vivaldi and Bach have much more of an influence on, say Malmsteen, Gilbert, Cooley, and Romeo than Eddie Van Halen.
> 
> QUOTE]
> 
> ...


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## guitarplayerone (Dec 31, 2007)

he was a huge influence on everyone from steve vai, to dimebag, sure. Im not disagreeing with that. All I'm saying is that eruption isnt worth learning for its techniques, because there is better stuff out there now. Its good to listen to perhaps for the motivation, or from a historical viewpoint, but otherwise I don't see the point, if you are trying to shred, but also sound like yourself.


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