Here a cool guitar lick from rockabilly swing guitarist Brian Setzer. This is from his early days with the Stray Cats from the intro of the song “Stray Cat Strut”.
“Stray Cat Strut” Guitar Lick
(Video Guitar Lesson)
Brian Setzer Guitar Lick Tablature
The red number above is the note you should use as your guide when playing this lick in other keys. In this case the red note is a C. This guitar lick is in the key of C minor. If you wanted to play this lick in B minor, then you would move everything down 1 frets so that the note in red would be at the 7th fret (B).
For more information on how to read this, check out the lesson on Reading Internet Guitar Tablature.
Brian Setzer Guitar Lick – Part 1
The first part of this guitar lick comes out of a C blues scale. Even though there is not a chord being played during this lick, there is a C minor chord that’s implied by the notes. This part of the lick could be played over any minor chord, or even a major chord in a blues context.
C Blues Scale
Brian Setzer Guitar Lick – Part 2
Then the next part of the guitar lick comes out of a G whole tone scale, and the notes are implying a G augmented chord (G+). In fact the first 4 notes of the 2nd part of the lick comes right out of a basic G augmented chord fingering. This part of the lick is really only useful over an augmented chord, or a 7(#5) chord.
G Whole Tone Scale
Here is the fingering for a G whole tone scale. The numbers in red are the G notes within the scale form.
Here is the G whole tone scale again with the numbers in blue showing all of the notes in the scale that are used in the guitar lick.
Have fun with your new Brian Setzer Rockabilly guitar lick.
