Sweep Picking Blues Lick

Often when you think about sweep picking you might think about crazy metal licks. But really sweep picking can be used in all kinds of different styles. In this video guitar lesson I will be showing you a sweep picking blues lick in A.

Video Guitar Lesson

Sweep Picking Blues Lick in A – Guitar Tablature

Here’s the tablature for the guitar lick. This lick is played in the 5th position and you can use the A note that’s on the 5th fret of the first string or 6th string as a reference note. This lick is mostly made up of the notes of an A7 arpeggio. You will see the symbol to indicate the downward sweep and for the up sweep.

Be sure to check out my lesson on the basics of sweep picking.

Sweep Picking Blues Lick in D – Guitar Tablature

Here’s the same lick in the key of D. Or you could play this over the IV chord in a blues in the key of A which would be a D7 chord.

Sweep Picking Blues Lick in E – Guitar Tablature

Move that lick in D up 2 frets and you have the same lick in E. This can be played over the V chord in the key of A which is E7.

Blues in A Chord Progression

Now try taking this lick through a basic a blues chord progression in the key of A. The lick is one measure long So play the A lick once, then D once, then A twice etc. For the full tablature as well as some mp3 jam tracks see the “Guitar Lesson Downloads” section lower on the page.

Guitar Lesson Downloads

Below is a PDF with the tablature for this guitar lesson. There are also 4 MP3 Jam Tracks. Two are just A7 jams at different speeds so you can practice the main lick. Then there are 2 Blues in A jam track at 2 different speeds.

(Right Click the links below and choose “Save As” or “Save Target As” or “Download Linked Files As”)