Greetings Premier Guitar fans and welcome to the Shred Guitar Roundtable! I’m Jeff Beasley and I’ll be your host for this evening’s festivities. You may know me from my “Lethal Guitar” column here in Premier Guitar, but I’m also a seasoned shredder from way back. I’ve brought some friends along to give you an awesome glimpse into the minds and licks of some of the top shredders in modern guitar. Rusty Cooley, Mike Orlando, and Oli Herbert will be joining me in this roundtable.
Each one has provided video examples with corresponding tab and text explanations for every lick.
Jump to:
Rusty Cooley
Mike Orlando
Oli Herbert
I'll kick it off with some examples of my own:
Lick 1
An intervallic approach to a fully diminished or diminished 7th arpeggio, resolving into the pentatonic minor scale with the b5 included. I break the arpeggio into minor 3rd intervals descending and resolve to the root of the pentatonic scale. I also use strict alternate picking throughout the line, making it challenging for the picking hand as the intervallic approach challenges the fretting hand.
Lick 2
This Shawn Lane melody is quite the attention getter at higher tempos and makes use of the odd beat grouping of quintuplets (groups of five). Notice I use fingers 1, 2 and 3 of the fretting hand exclusively, as I ascend in the line. This is the fingering Shawn used and I’ve found it to be quite player friendly at the quicker tempos. It requires a bit more stretching, but the ends justify the means.
