Home >> Features >> Lick of the Month - Joe Stump

This lick/passage is in B Harmonic Minor/ F# Phrygian Dominant. I start out with a 5 note alternate picked grouping that's fairly standard where I'm playing 6 tones in a circle (3 notes per string). Then I ascend thru this 4 string 2 octave shape (3notes per strings). This is a cool scale shape I use all the time, instead of just moving straight up diatonically I ascend 4 strings and then that same shape an octave higher. That passage is economy picked as are all of the ascending scalular passages I play. Using that kind of picking enables me to play across the strings at fairly terriflying speeds.

Then I snake thru a cool mixed minor shape I use all the time. Mixed minor meaning I've got notes from both B Aeolian (Natural Minor ) and B Harmonic minor. It's a great symetrical shape and works great in a Phrygian Dominant or natural minor context depending on how you resolve it. The descending portions of the run are alternate picked but all the ascending stuff`s picked economy (down, up, down). Then I economy pick thru a hexatonic shape. I use those all the time as well, where you just take a 6 tone scale shape and play it in 3 octaves. The lick ends on Uli -Jon Roth type of phrasing melodic idea with some wide vibrato.

Shred on my metal brothers- Joe Stump

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