Today's lick pays homage to the playing of blues legends Stevie Ray Vaughan and Lightnin' Hopkins. It's a short but action-packed lick in the key of A.

Today's lick pays homage to the playing of blues legends Stevie Ray Vaughan and Lightnin' Hopkins.

It's a short but action-packed lick in the key of A, played out of the open position and incorporating lots of quick finger slides, hammer-ons, pull-offs and open strings.

You'll notice the fraction "1/4" at the top of the bend arrows for the high G note (high E string, third fret) in bar 1 and the low G (low E string, third fret) in bar 2; this indicates my use of microtonal quarter-step bends. With a microtonal bend, the string is bent just a little bit, approximately halfway between the third and fourth fret in each case here. It adds a little "sass" and attitude to the note, unlike a bend that raises a note up to a new, specific pitch.

The tempo is 100 beats per minute, 64 for slow practice.

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