Play like Billy Gibbons

Billy Gibbons built the ZZ Top sound on Texas boogie: a low, greasy groove, fat bends and pinch harmonics that squeal over the band. This chapter breaks his style into five techniques you can practise one at a time, all in a Billy Gibbons-style blues vocabulary in A and E.

You start with a repeating triplet lick in A minor pentatonic, the kind of loop that builds tension before it resolves. Then you learn the unison bend, two strings howling into one pitch, and the pinch-squeal: a pinch harmonic, a bend and vibrato in one move. The boogie rhythm lesson covers the shuffle groove on the low E string with the minor-to-major third hammer-on and chord stabs, and the last lesson brings lead down to the low strings with lazy, heavy licks and a half-step curl.

Every exercise is a tab that plays in your browser with a click and a tempo ladder, and each lesson ends with a checkpoint. You'll also get tips on getting a thick Billy Gibbons tone: bridge humbucker, moderate gain and a firm pick attack, rather than a wall of distortion.