Learn to play some fun pentatonic sequence licks in the style of Ace Frehley with Guitar Control instructor Darrin Goodman, aka Uncle D. If you have followed Uncle D’s lessons for any length of time you probably already know he is a fan of Ace. Uncle D thought it would be fun to take the recent lick sequences that he has been teaching and show you some context. So be sure to get the free tabs to go along with the video instruction and you will be rockin’ these classic Ace Frehley licks tonight!
Introduction
How’s it going everybody? This is Darrin with GuitarControl.com bringing you this video lesson and today I’ve got some fun pentatonic licks, sequence licks like what we’ve been talking about as of late; and these are all in the style of Ace Frehly.
So right now, Guitar Control is giving away this really awesome daily practice routine to improve your lead guitar chops. This was put together by our very own Silvio Gazquez, a two-time Guitar Idle finalist. This routine covers the four main concepts that are necessary for lead guitar; alternate picking, legato, sweep picking and tapping. All the tabs and exercises are all included in this free ebook and there’s a link in the description where you can get yours.
So be sure to click on the link in the description for the tabs and let’s get close up and take a look at these.
About The Licks
All right, so these are in E Minor because these are some sequences from the song Love Gun by KISS. If you’ve followed me for any length time you know that Ace is basically the guy that got me going in the first place, so I’m a big fan of his playing. So this solo is made up of a lot of the ideas that we’ve been going over so I thought it’d be kind of fun to put it into context, to something that you can play and know what it is and be able to play along. Now that being said they are actually tuned down a half step and I’m in standard tuning right now so if you want to be in the same key as they are to play along you will have to tune your guitar down a half step. So I’ve divided this up into two different parts.
Ace Frehley Lick-1
All right, so part one, this is the run at the beginning of the guitar solo. So we come in on the and of four, so we rest one two three four and on the and of four we’re gonna hit the 12th fret of the low E string with your third finger. And then starting on the downbeat of one of the second measure we’re going to go into the sequence that’s made up of eighth note triplets, so it’s going to be like one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three. So we’re gonna go to the 10th fret of the A string with your first finger and we’re going to play that and then back to the 12th fret of the low E string with your third finger and then back to the tenth on the tenth fret of the A string, and that’s your first triplet. And now you’re going to take your third finger and we’re going to put it on the 12th fret of the A string and we’re going to go 12, 10, 12. Then we’re going to slide from there to the 14th fret, 14, 12, 14. Then we’re going to go to the 12th fret of the D string, back to the 14th fret of the A string and back to the 12th fret of the D. So one yell-ow, and that’s how I count triplets. Instead of going trip-el-it I like to know what beat I’m on so I’ll say the number of what beat it is and then the word yellow. So it’s like one yell-ow, two yell-ow. Now we’re going to go to the 14th fret on the D string and now we’re on the third measure so it’s 14, 12, 14 and then to the 12th fret of the G string, back to the 14th fret of the D string and back to the 12th fret. So you can see the pattern we’ve got there. Now after we do 14, 12, 14, 12, 14, we go to the G string 14, 12, 14. Then we’re going to slide up a whole step so we’re at the 16th fret and then back to 14. Now we’re going to go to the 15th fret on the B string, but you want to use your middle finger and then back to 16 on the G string. Now we’re going to switch our hand position a little bit here and we’re going to put our first finger where our second finger is here on the 15th fret of the B string and then my third finger will go to the 17th fret on the B string. Then to the 15th fret on the high E string, back to 17 on the B string, back to the 15; so that’s three yell-ow. Now third finger up to the 17th fret on the high E string and it’s going to be 17, 15, 17. Then we’re going to move up to the 19th fret and we’re going to go 19, 17 and then we’re going to scoot up and this is the first time where we’re changing of our shape here. Instead of just being a whole step we’re going to scoot our first finger up a whole step, but a step and a half with our third finger. So now we’re on the 22nd fret with our third finger and the 19th fret with our first finger, and that’s beat two and then we’re gonna bend that 22nd fret up a whole step and throw some vibrato on it…
Ace Frehley Lick-2
All right then so then for this second part, it’s kind of got two separate parts of its own. So the first one here this is a really common lick that’s been done in lots and lots of stuff. You know Ace really didn’t invent these or anything. These are sequences that Jimmy Page uses, lots of people have, but this particular lick here is kind of like a Chuck Berry kind of a thing, so again we’re in E Minor and this is all right out of the E minor pentatonic box number one. So we’re going to start with our third finger on the 14th fret of the G string and we’re going to bend that a whole step and then we’re going to go to the 12th fret on the B and then the 12th fret on the high E. So this is a triplet, so that’s like one yell-ow, really, really, really common. So we do that twice’ one yell-ow, two yell-ow. And then starting on beat three we’re going to keep our first finger barred how we’ve got it here on the B and high E strings at the 12th fret and I’m going to take my pink and go to the 15th fret and I’m going to pick that and do a pull-off to 12. And then I’m going to use my third finger to go to 14th fret and pick and pull-off to 12. Then I’m going to go to the 15th fret on the B string and then back to the 12th fret of the high E string and that’s the first measure of part two, so it’s like measure six on the transcription and this thing is just repeated. So now you could change these and you could do pull-offs and stuff like that… And with any of the stuff that we do it’s always the best thing to do is really experiment around with it. Change where a sequence is completely picked try doing Legato with hammer-on’s, pull-offs, slides or if it’s something that’s already Legato try playing it by picking everything. It does make them sound different and it just really will help you to get all around better and to kind of know what you like. So it does that a few times and then on the next measure we’re going to do it three times; one yell-ow, two yell-ow, three yell-ow. And then on beat four is just a quarter note and that bend again and then on the last part of it we’re going to do something that’s very similar to things that we’ve done in the past. So we’re going to start on the 12th fret of the high E to the 15th fret of the B string to the 12th fret of the B string and this is triplets; so it’s like one yell-ow. Now we’re going to start on the 15th fret of the B string and go 15, 12 to 14 on the G string. So do you see that sequence? It’s like a pattern of three notes; one, two, three. ow we start on Note two and add one, two, three, four, but one, two, three and it just continues down the scale. So now we’re back to 12th fret on the B string, 14 on the G to 12. Now 14, 12, 11 on the G string and then we end on the 14th fret of the of the D string. Now when we do this note here on the 11th fret, that’s outside of the pentatonic box, but it’s actually a note that’s in Mixolydian, which overlaps the pentatonic and so you’ll see that in like rock and blues things.
Conclusion
All right, so there you have it, two pentatonic sequence licks in the style of Ace Frehley. So if you like this lesson be sure to give me a thumbs up and leave a comment down below if you have any questions about this or other guitar related topics. If you have not already done so please subscribe to the channel and hit that notification bell so you don’t miss any of the content that we upload throughout the week. That is all I have for you today. Thanks for watching and have a great day.
