William Roberts

William Roberts

From Diamond Empire Band

William is a guitarist and bassist based out of Colorado who has had an extensive career as a session musician, live performer, and educator. William got his start playing with local rock groups, but branched out as the lead musician of touring funk, jazz, and wedding bands. William's recording work has also spanned a wide array of genres and has allowed him to be an on-call musician as a session guitarist and bassist, as well as a producer and mix engineer. As an educator, W... (more)

William currently offers 47 guitar lessons at JamPlay, with 47 intermediate lessons.

William Roberts's contribution to JamPlay

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Rock

30 Rock and Pop Licks You Must Know

Rock, Pop and genres bent from it are punctuated by signature licks, riffs and rhythmic ideas. William Roberts dissects these sounds and ideas and parleys them into this vocabulary pack. Drop these licks and riffs directly into your lead playing, or use them as an inspirational platform on which to create your own.

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30 Rock and Pop Licks You Must Know Introduction

Do you have a couple basic diatonic and pentatonic scales under your fingers but don't really know how to use them? This lick course is designed to take your scale knowledge and apply it practically to melodic lick and riff concepts. Join William Roberts as he breaks down 30 rock and pop licks designed to break you through scaler playing.

2:57 Runtime

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2

Pentatonic Power

To start off, William offers up a minor pentatonic sounding lick in the Blues or Classic Rock genre.

4:10 Runtime

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3

Color it Blue

This lick uses a descending scale sound and is based off of the lick you learned in the previous lesson.

5:07 Runtime

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4

The Chuck Slide

This is minor pentatonic meats Dorian sounding lick in the style of Chuck Berry.

5:17 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

5

Angus Steps In

You're still using that Dorian sound from the previous lick, but now in the style of Angus Young.

5:28 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

6

Stevie's Way

Lick 5 uses the pentatonic scales to groove on a Stevie Ray Vaughn inspired lick.

5:09 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

7

The King's Line

In lick six you'll be using a major pentatonic sound in the BB King box.

5:47 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

View this Lesson
8

Move like Mayer

In lick seven, you'll take the ideas from the previous lick and modernize it a bit in the style of John Mayer.

5:31 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

9

Jimi’s Double Stops

In this lick, you'll be moving into more of a rhythm and riff based sound, emulating double stops in the style of Jimi Hendrix.

6:52 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

10

Lead Like Rhythm

We're still playing around with rhythm based riffs on this one. Using the guitar's upper register we create a lead like sound that is distinctively rhythmic.

6:48 Runtime

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11

Minor Double Stops

Now let's take a look at double stop riffs in a minor tonality.

6:30 Runtime

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12

The Jackson Stops

Lick 11 has more double stops flying at you! This one has both a rhythm and melodic elements to simulate a lead part.

7:28 Runtime

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13

Just Like A Slide

Let's switch things up for lick 12. In this one, you'll emulate the sound and feel of using a slide.

5:52 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

14

Still Sliding

In this lick you'll remain in a major pentatonic modality in a slide type fashion.

8:59 Runtime

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15

The New Nashville

Lick 14 is based in a major pentatonic sound that incorporates many of the techniques from the previous licks.

8:44 Runtime

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16

Pop Country Steel

This lick is another country style lick that will emulate the pedal steel guitar.

6:04 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

17

Stomping in E

This E minor lick is blues oriented and is based in the E minor Pentatonic tonality.

6:35 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

18

In the Garage

Lick 17 is in the style of modern garage rock bands like The White Stripes.

6:33 Runtime

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19

The Magic Interval

This lick is based around William Robert's favorite interval, the sixth.

5:54 Runtime

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20

A 6th of Whiskey

William is once again playing with sixths. This lick will extend the intervals to create a bit more movement.

6:14 Runtime

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21

A Classical Blues

This C minor lick has an ascending arpeggios with a descending scaler motion, in the style of Eric Johnson.

8:44 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

22

Jimi's Octaves

Lick 21 uses octave shapes that re decidedly Jimi Hendrix-esque.

8:15 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

23

The Octave Lead Up

Using the octave ideas from the previous lick, William demonstrates how to modernize the sound.

5:49 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

24

The Caprice

Lick 23 is a scaler motion lick centered in the key of F minor.

7:07 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

25

The Eddie Tap

In this lick you'll learn a basic tapping pattern in the style of Eddie Van Halen.

6:17 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

26

The Tap Continues

Lick 25 will continue to work tapping into your repertoire. This one expands the pattern slightly.

7:09 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

27

The Modern Minor 9

This lick has a combination of runs and chords in the same passage.

6:49 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

28

Double Trouble

Like the previous lick, you'll be playing through a series of chords. On this one you'll be adding some fills.

6:44 Runtime

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29

Talking With Two Notes

Lick 28 continues the idea of playing through changes. This lick encompasses more melodic phrasing.

6:03 Runtime

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30

The Virtuoso

Lick 29 is designed to get you more comfortable with hammer-ons and pull-offs using the pentatonic pattern.

4:38 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

31

The One String Wonder

For the last lick in this series, you'll use hammer-ons and pull-offs to blaze a lick on a single string.

5:32 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

Lead Concepts & Techniques

Flying Solo: Modal Guitar Soloing

In this series, William Roberts walks us through the wonderful world of modal soloing. While modal playing can be intimidating for players just starting, William's technical expertise translates these complex concepts into understandable chunks that we can immediately incorporate into our playing.

1

Introduction to 'Flying Solo: Modal Soloing'

William Roberts introduces us to 'Flying Solo: Modal Soloing'!

1:40 Runtime

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2

Dorian Lick 1: Outlining the Changes

In this first lick, William walks you through how to utilize the Dorian mode to highlight the chord progression you're playing over.

7:44 Runtime

4.0 Difficulty

3

Dorian Lick 2: Climbing the Arpeggio Ladder

Learn how to ascend and descend the fretboard using arpeggios incorporated with the scale, a technique used by a lot of instrumental Rock guitarists.

9:41 Runtime

4.0 Difficulty

4

Dorian Lick 3: Six Sick Sixths

Utilizing repeating pull-offs, William shows you how to really pull the most out of the Dorian mode in this solo.

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5

Dorian Lick 4: Legato Speed

Add some flair to the original Dorian solo learned in lesson 2.

8:19 Runtime

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6

Putting Together the Dorian Solo

Now let's combine everything we've learned up to this point to carve out a complex-sounding solo.

7:36 Runtime

4.0 Difficulty

7

Mixo-Dominant Lick 1: Like the Bass

Incorporating the Mixolydian mode, William explains how you mimic what a bass would be playing on the guitar.

5:42 Runtime

4.0 Difficulty

8

Mixo-Dominant Lick 2: Hidden Arpeggios

In this next lesson, we'll discover a hidden triad that we can use to spice up our solos!

5:33 Runtime

4.0 Difficulty

View this Lesson
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Mixo-Dominant Lick 3: Tweaking the 3rd

Playing between the minor 3rd and major 3rd allows you to step outside of the box.

5:33 Runtime

2.5 Difficulty

10

Mixo-Dominant Lick 4: Double Stops

Double-stops are a useful and easy technique to add to our repertoire. Here, William covers how to get this skill under our fingers.

6:06 Runtime

2.5 Difficulty

11

Putting Together the Mixo-Dominant Solo

Next, we'll assemble all of the techniques learned within the Mixo-Dominant style. Get ready to let your solo fly!

9:57 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

12

Phrygian Lick 1: Targeting the Minor 6 Interval

Let's check out this Phrygian lick in F that comes to life with a little vibrato!

6:27 Runtime

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13

Phrygian Lick 2: Major 7 Arpeggio

Building upon the lick learned in the last lesson, William incorporates an arpeggiated shape to keep the solo fresh.

5:49 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

14

Phrygian Lick 3: Ascending 16ths

Here, we'll be locking in our 16th notes as we walk up the scale with this next fun lick!

4:30 Runtime

2.5 Difficulty

15

Phrygian Lick 4: Triplet Arpeggio

This lesson takes this melodic solo and adds a technical element to create a new sound.

6:04 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

16

Putting Together the Phrygian Solo

Congratulations! We've reached the final lesson in the course! To close it out, let's combine everything we've learned into one spicy Phrygian masterpiece!

9:44 Runtime

3.5 Difficulty

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