The “Love Gun” Lick

Here’s a great run, and a great exercise as well, using the pentatonic scale. This has been used countless times in popular music by guitarists such as Jimmy Page, Ace Frehley and even Randy Rhoads. I’m sure someone did it before him, but the first guy I remember hearing do it was Page. Despite that fact, I’ll always refer to it as the “Love Gun” lick, since that is the most memorable use of it for me (Ace Frehley did it on the song “Love Gun” by KISS).

We’ll move up the neck to the 12th fret, and play the lick in the key of E minor. The whole lick is really just a series of repetitions (and for the record, this is NOT the exact “Love Gun” lick, so don’t bug me music publisher people!)

We’ll start by playing the 15th fret with our fourth finger on the low E string (6th string) which is the G note, then the 12th fret with our index finger, which is the E note, then back up to the G note at the 15th. This is the first complete cycle. What we’ll be doing is repeating this cycle as we progress to each higher note in the scale. We’ll be using the same pentatonic shape we learned in the last installment.

Here’s the entire lick. Note that we end with a full bend for effect:

Remember to use alternate picking – this is a GREAT lick that you will get a lot of use out of – it is also a very good exercise or warm up.

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