20 Easy Guitar Licks

These are easy guitar licks, but they will still give you a good challenge, suitable for beginners playing electric or acoustic guitar.

Some of the guitar techniques you’ll get to practice by playing these licks include:

Bending
Tapping
Sliding
Legato (hammer-ons and pull-offs)
Alternate picking
Sweep picking

And if you don’t know them, I recommend taking a quick look at the 5 positions of A minor pentatonic before you start. Most importantly, memorize and learn shape 1.

Anyways, if you’re looking to play some fun licks, scale shapes, and arpeggios, you’ll love this lesson.

Guitar lick 1: Bendy blues

This first lick is an easy bending lick using the A minor pentatonic scale.

Bending practice lick in A minor pentatonic

Guitar lick 2: Legato rock

This is an easy lick using hammer-ons and pull-offs. I recommend playing the 5th frets with your 1st finger (index), the 8th frets with your 4th finger (pinky), and the 7th frets with your 3rd finger (ring).

Easy A minor pentatonic rock lick using hammer-ons and pull-offs

Guitar lick 3: Double stops

This lick uses double stops taken from the first position of the A minor pentatonic scale.

Simple double stop rock lick in A minor pentatonic position 1

Guitar lick 4: Blues slide

This is an A minor blues scale lick using a slide up to the blues note, which is at the 8th fret of the G string. It also uses a double stop at the 5th fret of the B and high E strings. I recommend playing the double stop with a barre.

Easy blues guitar lick using the A minor blues scale

Guitar lick 5: Rock techniques

This lick is slightly more technical than the other licks you’ve played so far. It uses a variety of rock guitar techniques, including double stops, hammer-ons, pull-offs, and bends. It’s constructed using the A minor blues scale.

Easy guitar lick using multiple rock techniques

Guitar lick 6: Open E minor pentatonic

This lick is a descending open E minor pentatonic scale. You can play this lick as it’s written, or you can create other licks using the scale shape.

Open E minor pentatonic scale lick descending

Guitar lick 7: Easy tapping

This is a tapping lick using an A minor arpeggio. You’ll tap at the 12th fret, pull-off to the 5th fret, and hammer-on to the 8th fret. Tapping is arguably an advanced guitar technique, but it’s also a fairly easy technique to learn.

Easy tapping lick using an A minor arpeggio on the E string

Guitar lick 8: Single-string A minor pentatonic

This lick is a single-string A minor pentatonic lick on the high e-string that moves up the fretboard. You can easily transpose this lick, and I recommend trying it on other strings.

Single-string A minor pentatonic scale lick

Guitar lick 9: String skipping rock lick

This is an easy string skipping lick using the A minor pentatonic scale. Play it using downstrokes and hammer-ons.

String skipping lick using A minor pentatonic

Guitar lick 10: Blues turnaround in E

This is a common blues turnaround lick in the key of E major. Play it using your middle finger on the D string, and your pinky finger on the B string.

Guitar lick 11: Van Halen-style shred

This is an ascending lick in the key of E minor using some very popular shred licks played using legato. Licks like this are popular in bands such as Van Halen, and are easily derived from 3 notes per string scales.

Guitar lick 12: C major hybrid picking

This is a string skipping lick in the key of C major that moves diatonically up the fretboard. I recommend hybrid picking this lick. This means you’ll pick the notes on the D string with your guitar pick, and you’ll pick the notes on the B string using your middle finger.

Diatonic string skipping lick in C major

Guitar lick 13: Easy whole tone

This is an easy whole tone scale lick. It shows you the whole tone relationship between the G and B strings, as well as the whole tone relationship between the B and high e strings.

Guitar lick 14: Diminished arpeggios

This is a popular diminished arpeggio lick. It uses the same diminished arpeggio shape twice, played a minor 3rd (3 frets) apart. I recommend the following picking pattern: Down, pull-off, up, down (D-PO-U-D).

Common diminished arpeggios ascending in minor 3rds

Guitar lick 15: Octave-jumping major arpeggios

This is a G major arpeggio played at 3 different octaves. Use downstrokes on every string, and play the hammer-ons as shown in the tablature.

Easy, octave arpeggios lick using G major triads

Guitar lick 16: 7th arpeggios

In this lick you’ll play 4 different types of arpeggios: major 7th, dominant 7th, minor 7th, and minor 7b5. You’ll play all 4 of these arpeggios using the root note G, and you’ll play them as 2-notes-per-string. You can move any of these arpeggios to new octaves.

Guitar lick 17: Beginner sweep picking

This is a beginner sweep picking lick. You’ll simply play: down, down, down, up, pull-off, up. Make sure you play all 3 downstrokes using a single downward picking motion, similar to a downward strum, which will result in the sweeping sound.