Lick #2: Half Diminished Slidey Trick (Guitar Lesson LK-002) How to play

Hey, how you doing, Justin here.

In this lesson, today I am gonna be

showing you my half-diminished slidey

trick lick. Which is basically an A7 lick.

Again, uh but you are kind of using a

C-sharp half-diminished arpeggio.

Cause C-sharp half-diminished, when played

over an A base note becomes a kind of an

A9 cord or an A9 sound.

Now you don't have to know

all of that really to be honest

it's just an A7 lick so any kind

of a bluesy lick. That uses a few cord

slides to kind of negotiate your way

through the pattern. So um, without any

further ado let's get to a closeup and

uh, have a look at it.

Okay, first of all just I'll just play it

for you at regular speed.

A little slower.

Even slower.

Okay, now I'll go through it note by note

So, what we're starting off here.

First finger, fourth fret, fifth string.

Little finger, seventh fret.

Second finger on the fifth fret.

First finger, fourth fret.

Little finger on the seventh fret.

This is the...

That matches the C-sharp half-diminished
arpeggio

Little finger's flicking off to the first
finger.

Then pick with the second finger and

slide it up one fret.

I've shifted off of position, obviously.

So now first finger, fifth fret.

Now I use my little finger here to slide

from the seventh to the eighth.

Finish string now, fifth fret.

Little finger this time sliding from

eighth to ninth.

It's kind of outlining now on

A7 up here, Joe.

Cause of course we've gone

Hopefully that kinda obvious how that's

outlining A7.

And still on A7 here. Fifth fret.

Fifth fret roll.

Finishing on the flat seven there.

It's a really handy little lick there

Especially getting use to

If you want to check that out as well

It's a C-sharp half-diminished arpeggio or

C-sharp minor seven fret five.

You see it kind of forms part of the A7
cord. That's A7 for sound

As for all of the licks I'm going to show

you, the really key thing here is you

experimenting yourself. See if you can

take my licks and kinda change it a bit

and make them your own, give them your

own kind of flavor you know.

It's important, I think, to learn to use

them in different keys too don't just have

that one lick that works in A.

This one of course is an A7 lick again.

Make sure you know it in D.

If you are playing it in blues

You should be able to move it straight

away to any other key that you want.

That it happens to fit the cord.

cause these kind of licks that I'm

showing you here are kinda cord specific
licks.

This fits over an A7, this doesn't

really fit over the D7 or E7

in an A blues. It's kind of an A blues

lick but it really has to fit the

individual cord. Which is kind of a fun

way of playing once you get into the idea

of looking at the cords instead of just

playing within a key, like a minor
pentatonic thing or whatever

So um, hope you have fun with that and

I'll see you for another lick very soon

Take care of yourselves.
Bye-bye.