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Learn to play blues guitar.

Pedal Steel licks for electric guitar – solo composition – EP388

Description

In this week’s guitar lesson, you’ll learn how to incorporate classic pedal steel licks into your leads by bending into harmonized 3rds. To make practicing these licks more fun, you’ll be learning a standalone composition (no jam track needed) to practice these licks. Sounds great all by itself.

Part 1 - Free Guitar Lesson

Part 2 - For Premium Members

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Slow Walkthrough

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Video Tablature Breakdown

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Comments

  7. peter v says

    a great bending-lesson,but my fingertips are still aching because of the last lesson. And I am not so familiar with countrymusic .Here in Germany we dont hear it very often.Nevertheless I like the sound and there are special effects I didnt know yet.Now you showed me how to create them.

    Thank you Brian

  8. Ralph P. says

    Hi Brian, Here’s a good ending lick in D that I learned from a Leslie West guitar column years ago:
    play 12th fret A harmonic, then 12th fret D harmonic, then do a full pull down bend of E to F# on G string. I’ve remembered that lick for about 30 years so it must be a good one. Nice lesson.

    • charjo says

      Nice lick, Ralph. You could then pull off from the 9th fret G string to the 7th fret to resolve the D major chord. You can also slide around the G string to get any of the chord tones of the D, F# or A notes or even the D major scale while the harmonics ring. You could also end it with one of those pedal steel licks resolving to a D chord or my favourite Hendrix style embellishments around the 10th fret D chord. Thanks for the idea.
      John

      • Ralph P. says

        Hi John, Glad you liked the idea. Your approach sounds like mine; take a small idea and play around with it and expand on it. I’ve always thought that harmonics on guitar are one of the coolest, magical elements that make guitars so versatile and fun. I think the first time I noticed harmonics was the last note of George Harrison’s Nowhere Man solo. Simple, yet perfect.
        Ralph P.

  11. Darryl P says

    Brian,

    Again, a great lesson. My aging fingers have “issues” with the full bends but I’m working on them. A question: can you do a future lesson on how to do a classic “Country Intro”?

    • Ralph P. says

      Hey John, Ralph again. Here’s another piece for the puzzle. I’m sure Brian has touched on it somewhere. Did you notice that harmonized 3rds and harmonized 6ths have the same notes? The notes have just been flipped. Pretty cool, huh? Another concept I’ve had fun with is harmonizing the “country hexatonic scale” (Allman Brothers Scale). You play a D triad, Eminor triad, D triad, Eminor triad,… You can get some cool sounds out of this. Good way to learn triads too. As Brian says I hope you get some “takeaways” from this.
      Ralph P.

      • RNArizona says

        Hi Ralph, I’ll reply to you since it was your first remark that started the conversation, but both you and charjo presented some really good ideas here. It’s like an addendum lesson on top of this one. That Leslie West lick sure doesn’t sound like anything I heard him play at The Boston Tea Party in the 70’s, but I like it a lot!
        Goes great with this lesson too.

        • Ralph P. says

          Hey RN, You’re right. That doesn’t sound like a Leslie West lick. Back in the 80’s or 90’s there was a really good guitar magazine called “Guitar For The Practicing Musician”. Every month they would have fairly accurate tabs of old and new guitar songs. Loved that magazine because I had to learn everything by ear until tab came along. Leslie West only did 2 or 3 columns, and I remember this lick because he said it was his favorite lick and he didn’t know where he got it from.

  15. Francois M says

    Yes Brian, lots of lights going on.
    – In a recent lesson when playing over A you mentioned a box using the 2 and 4 frets. Here you have the box on the 5 and 7 frets for the D chord and you point out that the box is part of the D major pentatonic. The major pentatonic explanation was super helpful so now I understand the A box on 2 and 4 as well.
    – Thanks for introducing third intervals and tying them to chord shapes. I had been playing around with 6ths so this is timely.
    – The explanation of pedal chords. I hadn’t heard of those before. Now I have a term to describe those bends at the end of Stairway to Heaven, even though they don’t look like they are 3rds.
    – Fantastic using the A chord shape to play the Dsus4 and Dsus2 up on the 8th and 5th frets respectively. I forget that you can move those cool licks, like the opening notes to California Dreaming, up and down the fretboard.

  16. Robert M says

    Thanks for yet another highly useful lesson, Brian. One song from another genre (rock) that employs bending of harmonized thirds to great effect is “Gimme Three Steps” by Lynyrd Skynyrd. In fact, the main solo riff of that tune employs the same 2nd-/3rd-string bends over the D and A chords that you do in your composition.

  20. Henry G says

    Hey Brian, can you do a song by ….. Hey Brian, can you something like this on an acoustic for country tunes? ….. Hey Brian, can you do a lesson on mixing up major and minor pentatonic in both country and soft rock tunes? …… Hey Brian, can you tell what kind of strings you use on your different guitars, and for what tunes?…. Hey Brian, what amp setting are you using today…………..

    Haha, hey Brian……can you turn your computer off for the Holiday, close out all of us asking you for one more extra thing, and kick back and enjoy a few days with the family, just chilling?

    Best to you and yours for Thanksgiving, the upcoming holiday season and the New Year. Thanks for all your great, and greatly appreciated, presentations.

  22. Keith C says

    Like this lesson, always been keen on pedal steel licks, Amos Garrett style licks, etc. You say you used to think there was some kind of pedal or something to do this, there was the Clarence White b-bender of course, but its great just to be able to play them on a standard strat. Of course modern lightweight strings make it easier than the “fence wire” strings those guys had back in the sixties. I am still struggling a bit with some of these licks as I normally bend a string by twisting my forearm Chuck Berry style and of course if you’re bending one and holding down the next one without bending it that doesn’t work, so its all on the fingers.

  23. Jim G says

    Great lesson…old fingers straining to get to full bends…I know lighter strings can help, but would a shorter scale guitar make bending easier because of diminished string tension.

  24. Tore K says

    Hi, I’m new to you’re lessons, and most say this is a great site.

    I come from a rock nroll background, and this pedalsteel lesson was awsome, and pretty hard on the fingers. My fingers are hurting from all that bending, and I love it.

    Thanks, regards from Norway
    Tore.

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