Artist Lick: Joe Stump

By Ivan Chopik
November 21st, 2007

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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 through a 4-string 2-octave shape (3 notes per string). 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 scalar passages I play. Using this kind of picking enables me to play across the strings at fairly terriflying speeds.

Then I snake through 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 cool symmetrical 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 economy picked (down, up, down). Then I economy pick through 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 an Uli Jon Roth type of melodic phrasing idea with some wide vibrato.

Shred on my metal brothers- Joe Stump

Joe Stump - Artist LickJoe Stump - Artist Lick

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