Nick Johnston Licks

Hi GMC!

Welcome to this lesson covering the style of Nick Johnston, one of the most amazing modern electric guitar players who combines tasy tones and phrases with very creative shred lines.

In this new lesson you'll find 5 licks that combine his most used techniques, patterns and tricks over the same chord progression (Am - G - D) in order to recreate his approach to phrasing and shredding. The key is A minor, and the scales used here are Pentatonic Minor, Blues scale, Aeolian and Dorian. You'll also find a big use of Chromatic notes.

Each lick introduces a new important aspect of his playing which combines a wide variety of techniques:

Lick 1: Nick's melodic and expressive phrasing. Use of slides, bends, dynamics and muted legato.

Lick 2: Melodic and bluesy phrasing.

Lick 3: Melody combined with shreddy muted sweeps, legato and tapping. Use of ornaments (Mordent)

Lick 4: Slide phrases and blues SRV influence. Use of blue note as target note.

Lick 5: Neverending shreddy muted legato (with Sweeps and Tapping) passages. Pentatonic + chromatic notes.

Nick uses Strat type Schecter guitars. I've seen him using different amps, and processors but I can always detect his personal touch and tone. Based on some recent interviews, his biggest influences are Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Ray Vauhan and Jeff Beck as well as Paul Gilbert, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, but he also started playing songs by bands like Nirvana and Blink 182.
He is also a very creative composer that has released some of the most inspiring instrumental guitar tracks in the last years. The melodic and harmonic work on his compositions deserve another full lesson that I'll do soon. By now, learn this licks and check out his music!!

Sound:
I used Fractal Ax8's Suhr Badger 30, Cubase 9.5 to record audio and midi, Groove Agent for drums and Native Instruments Halion for synth. I've also used a Steinberg Bass guitar connected to AX8's Ampeg emulation.

These are my settings: