The fearsome 'spider' lick can speed up your guitar solos - here's how to try it

Guitar skills: Played at speed, the fearsome ‘spider’ lick is a challenging two-hand workout. Slow it down and you have a great finger exercise for any guitarist…

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1. [Pictured top] Spread your fingers out so each plays one fret. It’s a one-finger-per-fret shape - and you can move it around the fretboard as you need to.

2. Play 1st fret, 2nd fret, 3rd fret, 4th fret on the sixth string. Either use hammer-ons, or, for a challenge, pick every note ‘down-up’ style.

3. Once you’ve played the pattern on the sixth string, move up through the other strings, then back down to the sixth string to start again.

Finger permutations… The same exercise, but in a different order!

You’ve got four fingers, which means there are a whole bunch of different ways you can order the notes you play (often referred to as ‘permutations’). Try these, and see if you can work out some more:

1-2-3-4  4-3-2-1  3-2-1-4  2-1-3-4  1-3-2-4  2-1-4-3

We’ve played ‘1 2 3 4’ and ‘4 3 2 1’ finger patterns on our audio track, then dropped the guitar out for you to join in with any permutation you choose. We recommend playing at half-speed (or even slower) at first.

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