Open String Licks

Bill Keith's melodic style of banjo influenced some of these open string licks for guitar. Combining fretted notes with sustaining open strings underneath gives the illusion that the guitar has more strings than just six sometimes. It can also give a harp like effect, not quite as convincing as the harp harmonic technique, but that topic would require its own article.

Example 1 is in the key of D and employs the reverse banjo roll (a,m,p). Try to let all the open string notes sustain as long as possible.

Example 2 is way up the fretboard and in the key of E. This resembles a reverse banjo roll as well but starting on the M (middle finger of the right hand). I use this one quite a bit since it sounds a little out of the ordinary, a little less predictable.

Example 3 is in the same area of the fretboard as the previous example, but with some wider right hand leaps and a bluesier sound combing the flat third and major third.
a
Example 4 is a nice long rockabilly lick in the key of E. It employs some forward banjo roll action (p,m,a) and some reverse (a,m,p) on the way down. Try to play this one as fast as you can over a "Mystery Train" kind of groove.

Examples 5 thru 9 use the same type of descending open string lick that is altered to fit into 5 different keys. It's a good idea to have a bunch of these worked out for multiple keys just in case. Pay close attention to the right hand fingering on these. Pop the hybrid picked notes hard for a nice chicken pickin' effect.

For a printable PDF version of the music, please click for Page 1.