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Hey, how are you doing?
Justin here.
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In the lesson today, I'm going to be
teaching you 6 Angus Young style riffs.
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Like rock lead guitar riffs. A lot
of Angus's style is built on blues.
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They're essentially blues licks
from kind of, you know,
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Chuck Berry, T-Bone Walker,
Albert King kind of style licks,
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but played a little bit
heavier, a little bit faster.
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So what I'm going to do is-
Yeah, there's 6 licks.
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I'll just take you through
them one at a time.
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Lick number 1 sounds something like this:
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♪♪
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A little bit slower:
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♪♪
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Let's check it out in the close up.
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Lick number 1, nice and slow:
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♪♪
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Using my 3rd finger here:
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5
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8
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5
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7
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5
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7
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5
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7
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Roll, back and plenty of vibrato.
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I've got a whole lesson on this rolling
technique if you're struggling with that.
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Pick, pick, flick, and it's
important to realise that this
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note here is the note
that's on the beat, so it's:
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3 -- 4 -- and a-
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♪♪
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So make sure you've kind of sussed
that out because it's a good one
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to be practising repeating
along with your metronome.
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Just make sure you're
there with the rhythm.
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3 -- 4e - and a 1e -
and a 2e - and a 3 --
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4e - and a 1e - and a 2e - and a 3 --
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♪♪
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Lick number 2 sounds something like this:
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♪♪
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Bit slower:
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♪♪
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Okay, let's check it out as a close up.
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Okay, lick number 2 nice and slow:
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♪♪
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That lick again:
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2 -- 3 -- and - 4 - and -
1e and a - 2e and a - 3e and a - 4e
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1 -- 2 --
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♪♪
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Making sure you tone bend,
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drop it down,
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tone bend with vibrato.
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Then we've got here 8-5 flick off.
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8-5 again, but picked.
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Now I usually pick,
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pick,
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flick.
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♪♪
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Pick,
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flick off,
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pick, pick, pick, pick,
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flick off.
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♪♪
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Another little roll in there.
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♪♪
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Yeah,
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5
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7
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5
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♪♪
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Lick number 3 sounds likes this:
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♪♪
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But of course it tends to get
repeated a little more, the first lick.
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♪♪
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But I've just put a little tag on it.
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Little bit slower:
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♪♪
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Okay, lick number 3:
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♪♪
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Now this first part gets repeated a lot.
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Now I've just written it out
2 times officially for the lick,
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but of course you would do
it as many times as you like.
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It's this:
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♪♪
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Now some people might prefer
to do the bend with a 3rd finger.
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♪♪
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I don't recommend doing bends with the
4th finger, only with the 3rd finger.
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So, I mean you can if you like. It's up to
your style, it just doesn't work for me.
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So, if you're going to do this
style with your 4th finger here:
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♪♪
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You'd probably swap over your 3rd finger
for the bend, doesn't really matter.
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I suspect Angus's is going to
be doing it here with a 2nd finger:
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♪♪
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Making sure that you get that full tone.
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♪♪
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So it ends up being the same as
that note on the second string.
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♪♪
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Lick number 4 sounds like this:
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♪♪
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Very bluesy lick.
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♪♪
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Let's get to a close up.
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Lick number 4:
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♪♪
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So here we're starting off with
a tone bend on the 12th fret:
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♪♪
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A little triplet chromatically
down the blues scale:
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♪♪
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Now we've got a little 5 notes
over the space of 4 rhythm.
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♪♪
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Basically, what that's meaning
is that this little passage here:
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♪♪
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Finishes with this note on the beat.
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You can use hippopotamus or university.
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Hip-po-po-ta-mus
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U-ni-ver-si-ty
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If you want to get your group of 5 there.
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Hippopotamus or university
have 5 syllables, so you'd have:
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1 -- 2 -- 3 - trip-let - hip-po-po-ta-mus
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And bringing this back
onto the beat there,
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but it's really a blues riff so you
can play with the rhythm there a bit.
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♪♪
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Just play with it.
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♪♪
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Lick number 5 sounds like this:
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♪♪
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Now this is another repeating lick.
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This bit:
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♪♪
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Can get repeated as many
times as you like, and
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♪♪
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just finishing it with that really.
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You can pick every note:
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♪♪
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or do them all as flick offs:
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♪♪
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Of course you can probably
get it a bit faster with the flick offs:
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♪♪
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but it doesn't quite have as
much guts if you do it that way,
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and of course that-
This one can go right up the neck:
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♪♪
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There's lots of different variations
that you should play with, of course.
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Okay, lick number 5 here we've got:
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8
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7
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5
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over and over again:
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♪♪
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Now if you pick every note it
sounds a little bit more aggressive:
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♪♪
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but you can always do pick, flick, flick:
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♪♪
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You could use those fingers if you want.
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♪♪
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And this lick definitely works
if you move it up 12 frets
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so your 1st finger
will be on the 17th fret:
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♪♪
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And of course alternate picking:
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♪♪
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Important thing with a
riff like this is to work out
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how to get out of it because repeating:
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♪♪
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you'll find fairly straight forward,
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but then you've got to
figure out how you'll finish it.
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Now, probably the most
most obvious one is:
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♪♪
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putting a bend on the end, or:
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♪♪
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sliding up here:
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♪♪
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is quite nice up to the 10th fret
with a 3rd finger, 2nd string.
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♪♪
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Also gets you to the next position
which is quite nice, or:
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♪♪
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you could put a bend on,
wouldn't really matter.
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Lick number 6 is kind of a country
style riff that Angus uses quite a lot.
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I'm going to show you one way of
playing it, which is going to be this:
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♪♪
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But make sure that you understand
the kind of idea of having this
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12 fret bend and then adding
the other note together:
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♪♪
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Very commonly done in AC/DC stuff,
so make sure you check out
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lots of variations of this yourself.
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And I'll also show you a quick
close up of how to do the same lick
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♪♪
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further up the neck,
so we'll have it here:
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♪♪
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and up here:
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♪♪
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Both essentially the same thing.
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Okay, lick number 6 here:
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♪♪
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Now I'm showing you the one
I've tabbed out for you is this:
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♪♪
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but there's loads of variations with this.
The concept that I'm trying to get you
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use to here is bending this 12th fret:
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♪♪
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and then sneaking
little finger underneath:
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♪♪
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You can hold that little finger
down and play it. It's quite nice.
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♪♪
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And really muck about with
that quite a lot, it's nice.
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♪♪
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Essentially what we're doing, just so you
understand the kind of theory behind it.
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♪♪
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As we're bending, we're really reaching
these 2 notes here which are 14th and 12th
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Which are essentially
part of little A-chord there.
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A-shaped bar chord.
That's why the lick works.
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♪♪
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Or:
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♪♪
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Now exactly the same note can be
found further up the neck here,
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putting little finger on the 17th fret:
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♪♪
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And bending the 16th fret up a tone:
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♪♪
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Well I hope you've enjoyed playing around
with those Angus Young styled licks.
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The big deal here is to
make sure that you practice
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variations of them, don't
just learn like a set lick.
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And what I really recommend that
you do is that you get a backing track
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of some sort of blues
or rock backing track
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and then practise using each of the licks,
one at a time, and experimenting with
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how you play it, so you
learn variations of it.
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And then try to mix it in with all
the other licks that you know
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so play one lick then go into this
new lick, deliberately, kind of thinking
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about it and play the lick and then
go on back into your regular playing.
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Try and get that new lick
in as many times as you can.
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Now that's a little bit conscious. In
real life it shouldn't happen like that,
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you shouldn't really be thinking much at
all, just be feeling and doing.
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But in order to get that way,
to get it kind of instinctive
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you need to have practised
these things a whole lot.
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It's that repetition that kind of makes it
natural for you to do those kind of licks.
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So practise, consciously, thinking about
it, trying to get those licks in as best
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you can and as often as you can
and probably what you'll find is
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the ones that kind of naturally
fit with your style of playing
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that'll come out on their own without
having to think about it. And the ones
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that maybe don't fit so well with your
natural playing style - maybe you won't
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play them so much, but that's
cool because they weren't the ones
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that were naturally right for you
so don't stress about it, you know.
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It's lot's of good fun.
Plenty more AC/DC licks.
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Highly recommend the "If You Want Blood
You've Got It" live album by AC/DC for
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licks stealing, cause it's live and
Angus's guitar is really kind of clear
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in the mix and it's quite an
easy one to transcribe from.
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Not too much production
kind of covering things up.
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Really raw and lots of really
proper blues lick in there,
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so check that album out - that would
be a highly recommended one.
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But remember, transcribing
is the way forward.
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Don't just be getting licks from
me and off tab books and stuff.
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Try and get into working out stuff by ear
because you'll learn it loads better
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and you'll really get inside it and
you'll pick up the vibrato better
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and the styling of it, the
rhythms of it and everything else.
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Cause remember, music is about
listening not about reading.
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Anyway, have fun with all of that and I'll
see you for another lesson some time soon.
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Take care.
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Bye.