Zakk Wylde - Minor pentatonic

Here's a series of exercises on the pentatonic scale to pick up a rather primal but very effective way of playing, inspired by the guitarist who inspired them, the great Zakk Wylde.

This time the goal is to play as fast as possible while staying clean, making sure each note is clearly distinguishable - otherwise these licks will lose much of their charm.

These licks are a great way to work on speed, string skipping, alternate picking and consistency, while adding new material to your guitarist's toolbox to bring out in your solos.

These licks are all in the key of E minor pentatonic, but feel free to move them to other parts of the neck to build dexterity across the whole fretboard.

The exercises are to be played in sixteenth notes (4 notes per beat) except exercise 2, which is in sextuplets (6 notes per beat).

As usual, start slowly, only speed up once you're making no mistakes and the movements are fluid, and increase the tempo in small steps (2bpm each time).