51 Tasty Licks by Stuart Bull

If you’re looking to expand your lead guitar vocabulary, improve your phrasing, and develop a deeper understanding of how great guitar solos are built, 51 Tasty Licks by Stuart Bull is an essential guitar lesson course. Packed with a huge variety of melodic ideas, expressive phrases, and technically challenging runs, this course gives players a practical collection of licks that can immediately be applied to blues, rock, hard rock, and classic metal playing.

Rather than simply learning scale shapes or repetitive exercises, this course focuses on real-world musical phrasing. Every lick is designed to help players improve their improvisation skills, develop stronger timing, and build confidence across the fretboard. Stuart Bull breaks down each phrase in a clear and accessible way, making the material suitable for intermediate guitarists looking to progress while still offering plenty of advanced ideas for experienced players.

The course explores everything from blues-inspired bends and pentatonic phrasing through to faster alternate picked runs, expressive legato ideas, arpeggios, and melodic rock vocabulary. Whether you want to sharpen your improvisation, add fresh ideas to your solos, or simply build a bigger arsenal of musical phrases, 51 Tasty Licks delivers an inspiring and highly practical learning experience.

Learn Real Lead Guitar Vocabulary

One of the biggest challenges guitarists face is sounding musical rather than simply running up and down scales. This course focuses heavily on phrasing and musicality, helping players understand how professional guitarists create memorable lead lines.

The licks featured throughout the course can be used as building blocks for improvisation, songwriting, and solo construction. By learning a wide range of phrasing ideas and techniques, players begin to develop their own voice while gaining a stronger understanding of how classic rock and blues guitar solos are structured.

Each lick introduces new rhythmic concepts, fretboard movements, and phrasing approaches that can easily be transferred into your own playing.

String Bending

String bending is one of the most expressive techniques in lead guitar playing and appears throughout this course in a variety of musical contexts. Stuart demonstrates controlled bends, bluesy phrasing, and melodic rock-style lead lines that rely heavily on accurate pitch and strong vibrato.

Learning string bending helps guitarists develop better ear training, phrasing, and emotional expression. Accurate bends are essential for achieving professional-sounding solos and are a huge part of the styles of players such as Gary Moore, David Gilmour, and Slash.

Vibrato

Vibrato gives notes life, sustain, and personality. Throughout 51 Tasty Licks, Stuart demonstrates how subtle and controlled vibrato can dramatically improve phrasing and overall tone.

Developing a strong vibrato technique helps players sound more confident and expressive while also improving note control and sustain. Great vibrato is often one of the defining characteristics of legendary guitarists and can instantly make lead playing sound more vocal and musical.

Alternate Picking

Many of the faster runs and scale sequences in the course rely on clean and efficient alternate picking. Stuart breaks down these ideas carefully, helping players improve picking accuracy, timing, and synchronisation between both hands.

Practising alternate picking improves speed, articulation, and rhythmic consistency. It also helps players gain better control when moving across strings and executing more technical lead guitar passages.

Legato

The course also introduces smooth legato phrases using hammer-ons and pull-offs to create fluid lead lines. These ideas help players develop speed while maintaining a relaxed playing style.

Legato playing is essential for achieving smooth phrasing and effortless-sounding runs. It also strengthens finger independence and improves fretboard mobility, making solos feel more connected and expressive.

Arpeggios

Arpeggio-based phrases appear throughout the course to help players move beyond basic pentatonic ideas and create more harmonically interesting solos.

Learning arpeggios improves fretboard awareness and helps players target chord tones more effectively during improvisation. This leads to more sophisticated soloing and a better understanding of how lead guitar interacts with chord progressions.

Double Stops and Blues Phrasing

Several licks incorporate double stops and blues-inspired phrasing ideas that add texture and attitude to solos. Stuart demonstrates how these small melodic ideas can make lead playing sound fuller and more dynamic.

Double stops are incredibly useful for creating classic blues and rock sounds while also improving rhythm guitar phrasing and melodic awareness.

Slides and Position Shifting

Smooth slides and position shifts are used throughout the course to connect phrases naturally and move across the neck efficiently.

Developing slide techniques improves fretboard navigation and helps solos sound more fluid and professional. Slides also contribute greatly to phrasing and can make even simple licks sound more expressive.

Stuart Bull and His Influence

Stuart Bull has long been recognised as one of the UK’s most respected guitar educators. Known for his clear teaching style, tasteful phrasing, and deep understanding of blues and rock guitar, Stuart has helped thousands of players improve their technique and musicality.

His playing draws influence from legendary guitarists including Gary Moore, Eddie Van Halen, Joe Satriani, Eric Clapton, and classic blues-rock players who shaped modern lead guitar. Throughout 51 Tasty Licks, these influences can be heard in the phrasing, articulation, and expressive techniques demonstrated in each lesson.

What makes Stuart’s teaching so effective is his ability to make advanced concepts feel approachable while always keeping the focus on musicality rather than simply technical exercises.

Expand Your Soloing Vocabulary

51 Tasty Licks is more than just a collection of guitar phrases. It’s a practical lead guitar toolkit designed to help players develop stronger improvisation skills, cleaner technique, and more expressive phrasing.

By studying a wide range of melodic ideas and techniques, guitarists can break out of repetitive soloing habits and discover new ways to approach lead playing. The lessons encourage players to combine ideas creatively, develop their own playing style, and build confidence across the entire fretboard.

Whether you’re into blues, rock, melodic shred, or classic hard rock guitar, this course provides a huge amount of material that can immediately improve your playing while keeping practice sessions inspiring and enjoyable.

Techniques Used In This Course

• Vibrato
• Alternate Picking
• Legato
• Arpeggios
• Pull-Offs
• Hammer-Ons
• Slides
• String Bending
• Bluesy Bends
• Double Stops
• Pre-Bends
• Trills
• Chromaticism