STUDY

GUIDE

Justin Derrico
20 Licks: High Octane Rock

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INTRODUCTION

Hey everyone, ready to dig in and turn some heads? In

this package I’m going to show you some of my ideas for
playing bold, exciting (but also melodic) solos in a meaty rock
context.

The difficulty here is that the musical genre usually fits best with pentatonic
scales and chord tones, and it’s really tough to be innovative with such
well-used resources! What we have to do is find new ways to combine these
notes, making full use of rhythmic ideas and interesting melodic contours. In
these 20 licks, I’m going to show you some of the themes I’ve been exploring
recently.

There’s also a full solo for you to use however you want – learn it in full,
experiment with my licks, or just jam over the backing track.
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CHAPTER 1

LICK BREAKDOWNS
LICK 1: The backing is in E minor, with just E5, G5 and A5 chords in addition
to a pentatonic riff. We’ll use the minor pentatonic (E G A B D) as the
framework for our ideas. Right away, here’s one of the themes I want to
explore: a series of open-voiced arpeggio shapes built on the notes of the
minor pentatonic. They’re mostly sus2 shapes (in this case Gsus2, Asus2,
Dsus2, Gsus2) and they generate some interesting melodic lines.

LICK 2: Taking Lick 1 as a template, we’ll shift up a fretboard position, finding

the new shapes we can access. You’ll notice that I’m playing a G major 1st-
inversion triad on the B note and then an E minor triad on the E note. I use
hybrid picking for these shapes, but use whatever feels comfortable for you.

LICK 3: Moving up another position, we have G/B, Dsus2, Gsus2 and G/B
arpeggios. You could of course target these arpeggios over the appropriate
chords, but it also works if you superimpose whole streams of them over a
single chord, where they work as melodic lines. For instance, the G/B over
the Em backing gives an Em7 effect.

LICK 4: Also check out how I’m using a “call and response” approach with
these licks. The line of arpeggios creates a sense of drama and tension, and
then we release that with a descent through the minor pentatonic or blues
scale (E G A Bb B D).

LICK 5: This one is particularly satisfying, because the bottom notes of the
arpeggios spell out the E minor chord (E G B E).

LICK 6: Now let’s introduce some more melodic variation. Rather than
ascending through a series of arpeggio shapes, we can start playing around
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CHAPTER 1 4

with them, changing the note order and sliding between the shapes.

LICK 7: We can also work horizontally, sliding through the available shapes
on one set of strings (rather than moving across the strings in one position).

LICK 8: Here’s a variation on Lick 7, using wider jumps between the shapes.

LICK 9: Here’s the phrase I use at the start of the full solo. I’m smoothly
connecting two bends with a slide, so you have to concentrate on your
bending intonation AND your phrasing. Also, note how I’m playing the
pentatonic arpeggio shapes in descending patterns now.

LICK 10: Again, using descending arpeggio shapes, and I’m moving across
the strings in a diagonal motion, descending through the strings but also
sliding down the fretboard.

LICK 11: Here’s another of the recurring themes from this package: a string-
skipping legato idea. The basic shape is an Em7 arpeggio at the 7th fret (see
bar 13 of the full solo) but we can take any of those notes and slide up or
down into other shapes. In this case, I’m sliding up into it from the simple Em
triad at the start. You can also see an Em6 (or C#m7b5) variation in bar 12 of
the full solo.

LICK 12: A gnarly, bluesy line using a short burst of descending arpeggios.

LICK 13: As with all new ideas, the crucial thing is to take them beyond
isolated exercises, and find ways to incorporate them seamlessly into your
playing. I want to hit one of these arpeggios as instinctively as I’d play a
pentatonic line.

LICK 14: Earlier I mentioned the importance of expanding rhythmic ideas.

When working with a shape-based idea, it’s easy to find yourself playing
everything squarely on the beat, so try starting patterns on different
subdivisions of the beat. Watch out for the sextuplet line in bars 3-4 – it
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CHAPTER 1 5

starts as an ascending Em7 arpeggio, then descends through B minor

pentatonic (B D E F# A). This scale works perfectly because all the notes are
in the full E minor scale (E F# G A B C D) so it simply adds a slightly different
melodic flavour.

LICK 15: Keeping up the intensity, this lick ascends through all shapes on
the top four strings, then descends through the blues scale (E G A Bb B D)
in sextuplets. Playing interesting, exciting solos is all about developing an
instinct for combining these elements. When do you hit the highest notes?
When do you switch from 16th notes to sextuplets?

LICK 16: Combining several elements… the Em7 string-skipping shape, the
arpeggio shapes (somehow simultaneously descending and ascending!) and
then the fast chromatic ascent to the climactic high bend.

LICK 17: Here’s a cool variation on the basic arpeggio approach. The top
note of each shape merges into a series of pentatonic pull-offs.

LICK 18: A more complex application of the arpeggio shapes, moving

through the strings in a “rippling” pattern, connecting them with slides, and
using the Em7 string-skipping shape (this time on strings 6-4-2) to ascend
back to the high E string.

LICK 19: Here, I start with the attention-grabbing bend, then descend
from the 12th-fret pentatonic box into a fragment of the string-skipping
arpeggio at the 7th fret. Then we have descending and ascending arpeggio
sequences.

LICK 20: The true test of a new idea is when you absorb it into your playing,
so it’s impossible to tell where the “new trick” begins and ends. Those
arpeggio shapes from Lick 1 are still here, but they’re far less obvious; they’re
part of a more sophisticated melodic flow.
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Justin Derrico
ROCK TRIAD LICK-A-PEDIA

Light a match on your improvisations and be able to drop the “wow factor” at a
moment’s notice with Justin Derrico’s fiery collection of melodic and harmonic
tension building licks. It’s time to raise some eyebrows.

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