Learn How To Use Polymeter Guitar Licks To Create Cool Phrases
Want to make your lead guitar licks sound awesome without having super-fast speed or mastering advanced guitar techniques?
No problem. Learning how to use polymeter is a fun and simple way to play impressive guitar licks that people can't help but nod their heads to.
Think polymeter sounds like a complicated music theory concept that can't really be used in your playing?
Think again!
Polymeter is actually very easy to apply into your playing right away, so you can start playing great guitar licks and solos in no time.
Watch this video to learn how to easily play cool guitar licks and solos using polymeter:
Click on the video to begin watching it.
 | Forward this video to your friends |
See my other guitar playing videos, available to my YouTube subscribers - follow my channel by clicking the button below:
Now that you have watched the video, you are ready to play cool guitar licks with ease!
Use these additional tips to refine your skills and play more creatively during lead guitar licks and solos:
Play Cool Guitar Licks Tip #1: Work On Hearing Notes In Your Head Before You Play Them
When you play guitar licks, it’s good when your notes and phrases flow smoothly.
Don't make the typical mistake of playing tons of notes and just hoping it sounds good eventually.
Practice this:
Play the first half of a short guitar lick, then sing the next half of the phrase using only your voice (you don't have to be a great singer). Next, try to play the notes you sang on guitar. This helps you start to play guitar licks and solos that are more memorable and expressive. Practicing this consistently makes your guitar playing become generally more melodic as well.
Plus, your fast guitar licks will naturally begin to become more expressive too!
Question: “What is another way to play guitar licks that sound memorable and expressive without tons of advanced technique?”
Answer: Whenever you repeat a musical idea, try to make it different than the previous time you played it using phrasing.
For instance, play one or two notes with phrasing ornaments such as bending/sliding into some of the notes, using trills, vibrato or things like different note rhythms etc. to add subtle (but interesting) variation to repeated ideas. Doing this on a consistent basis helps you gradually become more and more expressive whenever you play solos or improvise.
Play Cool Guitar Licks Tip #2: Make Clean Vibrato & Bending A Priority
One way to make sure bending and vibrato sound great is consistently keeping these techniques in tune.
Practice just a few minutes each day by working on nothing but bending the strings to the exact pitch you want to reach. This helps you become more consistent and expressive in no time.
Here is one way to effectively practice bending strings:
Play the pitch that you will be bending up to (by picking it as a normal note) and then play the bend in order to match them together. Then try pre-bending the string and matching the pitch without striking the string first.
Over time, this becomes effortless and your string bending sounds expressive and totally pro.
Question: “How important is it really to use vibrato in my guitar licks?”
Answer: Very important! At least start using it on longer notes of your guitar solos and licks.
Don't end up like many guitarists who play guitar solos that eventually sound boring because there is very little expressive vibrato used in them. Many times, they just aren't aware they are even making this mistake.
Good news is, it's easy to fix.
Practice this skill daily by simply trying to make a single note sound as expressive as possible using as many variations of vibrato technique as you can for 1 minute. For example, try using wide/fast vibrato, narrow/slow vibrato, legato together with vibrato, delayed vibrato, etc.
Then apply this concept into any short guitar lick you already know.
Play Emotional Guitar Solos Tip #3: Learn From An Experienced And Proven Guitar Teacher
Do you spend a lot of time playing and practicing guitar without making much progress?
You're not alone.
Many guitar players end up in this same frustrating situation.
Good news is, working with a guitar teacher helps you finally start playing how you want to.
Your lead guitar licks and soloing develops fast when you improve with an experienced guitar teacher who has already proven that they can get results for others.
Guitar players who have a teacher simply strengthen their weaknesses much faster than they would on their own.
Imagine how good it would feel to no longer be held back from playing the licks, songs, techniques and solos that you want.
Great guitar teachers are masters at helping you resolve issues in your playing that you never knew about while helping you achieve your guitar playing goals quickly and effectively.
Make a massive decision to improve your musical skills and begin taking guitar lessons today - Here is what my students have to say about taking guitar lessons:
“I found Tom Hess on the net through articles, and I read quite a few of those before I went to Tom’s website. Even though I’m not a metal player at all, and Tom is obviously a metal player, I could still see that his ideas and way of teaching could really benefit me. So I pretty much signed up for online guitar lessons with Tom straight away once I’d gone through the website, and it’s just been a real eye opener with the way he teaches…”
... the integration of concepts that he’ll give you and having a really structured strategy… not just week to week lessons, but things that - you can see from one lesson to the next - really develop and continue to work on your technique and your theory and aural skills and those types of things. So I’d played a long time… 20 years before I really caught onto Tom, and I’d had a lot of lessons, and I’d taught and played but I can really see improvements in my technique, sweeping, and picking which weren’t strong parts of my playing.
I feel like Tom has a good gauge of where you’re at as a guitar player and what you need, and there just seemed to be so much more stuff in the lessons week to week than what you’d ever get in an hour or so in a one on one lesson… way more. So yeah I think that and the forum. I think, I’d pay the money just for the forum. That alone would be fine… I wouldn’t have a problem with that at all. So that alone is massive!
The price for the lessons, that’s nothing... nothing. You know, I think it’s, pretty cheap to be honest. I don’t mean that in a bad way, cheap. Cheap is not a good word, but I just think it’s great value… awesome value. I mean, you know, you could pay that for one-to-one lessons and you just don’t get the same results and support of the forum and the content and the strategies.
Other teachers I’ve had have been good players, and some have become good friends too. But when I’ve started lessons with Tom I’ve got something to compare that to and a lot of it is just sort of teaching songs from week to week… a lot of the lesson will be left up to you… you’ll go to your lesson and they’ll be like what do you want to do today? At the time I said, oh do this song or that song, but with Tom you start to realize that you know, there’s more to it… the goals and you know he’s sort of more in contact with what you want to be able to do as a player, because he’s asking you the questions and then setting up the strategies, so I find that really good.
Yeah I can see more results in 18 months in a lot of areas in my playing than you know 20 years. So it’s sort of, you know, would’ve been great 20 years ago to have met Tom.
Simon Candy, Melbourne, Australia
When I started learning from Tom, the main thing that made him different from other teachers was that he was showing me how to excel in all aspects of my guitar playing by applying the skills that I already knew together with the new material that I was learning from him.
He made me aware of both strengths and weaknesses in my playing that I did not even know I had. From there he gave me the knowledge, tools and guidance to literally transform my guitar playing by enabling me to overcome things that were preventing me from becoming a truly creative and self-expressive guitar player. These were the kinds of things that none of my previous guitar teachers and books I studied were able to do for me.
After Tom made me aware of all the things I was missing in my guitar playing and provided me with the strategy and tools for solving them, I began to make very fast progress in all areas of my guitar playing.
I can now write my own music and can create lead guitar solos that I am happy and fulfilled with. I also have the technical skills to confidently and easily play anything that I want to express. I have overcome all of the lead guitar challenges that I struggled with before, and increased my guitar speed to virtuoso levels. More importantly, I have the knowledge and understanding of how to continually improve my guitar playing and musical skills to higher and higher levels to continue expressing myself with my music. Overall, I have definitely transformed in a huge way as a musician and as a person through my lessons with Tom Hess. I am grateful to him for guiding me towards becoming the guitarist I always wanted to be!"
Mike Philippov, Indiana, USA
“When I first heard about Tom Hess, I saw that he was a teacher that was very dedicated and serious about it, and that drew me in immediately. That this is a guy that has a plan, has a goal and really if you’re serious about learning guitar, this guy is equally as serious in a way. So it resonated with me straight away.”
I started out just learning by myself and as many others I got stuck. I had a few issues I wanted to get by, but when I met Tom and talked with him and started lessons with him, he opened up a whole new world of possibilities of what guitar playing can be.
I feel very grateful that I found lessons from Tom since I then did what worked from the very beginning. Many guitarists I see that played way longer than I did, they have build up many bad habits. That from the very start, there was clear instruction of how to practice correctly. You build the ability for high speed and whatever you want from the very beginning and you don’t waste time doing inefficient things. So I’m very grateful that I did that, and now I really feel I am able to reach whatever level I want.
The reasons why I think I feel so motivated all the time is because I know that the thing I’m working on is relevant for me and it’s exactly the direct thing I need to get.
The forum just kicks ass. The people in the forum - it’s just like unconditional help all the time. They love to help out, and you also get very inspired by seeing someone just really getting speed really quick and then you say if he can do it, I can do it. It works on the mental side of being a guitarist and that of course that’s the most important thing. Just being around other musicians like that, is just you learn so much faster, is so much less frustration when you can see that all the people are having the same issues that you do, not anything special or anything. It’s just part of learning process, so it kicks ass.
Magnus Gautestad, Norway
Ready to learn more about playing great lead guitar licks and solos?
Let me teach you all about playing guitar solos expressively and creatively. Get started taking online guitar lessons with a great guitar teacher by clicking "Start Now" below: