And with a bang, we jump right into the 21st century to examine the playing style of YouTube sensation Sophie Lloyd! I first became aware of her when Guitar World did a piece on her version of“Bohemian Rhapsody” during summer 2020, and I will hold my hands up here- when I clicked on the video and was met with the image of the glamorous blonde, perfect make up etc, my inner cynic's first thought was “OK, I can see why she's popular..”
By about the fourth bar, however, my inner cynic had shut up entirely, and I was busy picking my jaw up off the floor. Now, here's the thing – when you're confronted by someone on YouTube who's a better player than you, you can either think a) “Oh, this is hopeless, I'll never be able to do that, might as well give up now” or b) “Right, let's slow that down and figure out what he/she is doing there then”. I chose “b”, and (as any of you who follow my One Minute Lick posts on Instagram will be aware) have been richly rewarded with an absolute plethora of licks and runs, which we'll take a look at in this article.
First, a little potted history - Sophie began playing guitar at a young age and reached grade 8 by age 16, drawing influence from classic rock and metal bands like Iron Maiden, Pantera and Black Label Society (a fellow Zakk Wylde fan!) and went on to complete a music degree at the Brighton Institute of Modern Music (BIMM) London, graduating with first class honours.. She released her first EP, “Delusions” in 2018, but the real source of her fame is undoubtedly her YouTube channel, where as well as gear demos and original music she performs shred versions of classic rock tunes such as “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Highway To Hell”. Beyond that, information is a little bit sketchy, but it's safe to say that unlike most of the players we've checked out in the blog she's at the beginning of her career, rather than being firmly established like Neil Zaza or, well, dead. So one to to keep an eye on, especially as she's building up to a big release.
So, onto the juicy stuff – the licks! I'll admit to being a bit intimidated at first but when I started slowing things down and drilling down into the detail I started to decode some of the patterns she tends to favour, and like most of us, her playing is based predominantly around the minor pentatonic and position 1 three note per string major scale shapes.
A word on practicing these patterns – all too often students practice these patterns in isolation and then find they struggle to apply them. One trick to use to help here is to alternate rhythm and lead – for example , in the examples tabbed, practice chugging on a G powerchord for a bar before switching to one of the lead patterns for a bar, and then back to rhythm and so on. Make sure you keep a steady tempo whilst practicing, either with a metronome or drum machine, or just by tapping your foot. You'll have noticed that the stacked 12 pattern fits nicely into the bar, but for the 6 pattern you'll need to trim a group of 6 to make it fit the bar.
Developing these ideas further, Sophie often brings in pick hand tapping with runs like this one from her version of “Highway To Hell”, which combines the E natural minor 3 note per string fingering in the left hand while the right hand taps the A minor pentatonic at the 17th fret. The main chord in Highway To Hell is an A power chord, so this evens out as an A Dorian sound. The keen eyed amongst you will notice a rogue C# at the end, but that works out as a major 3rd over the A power chord, and of course power chords don't have 3rds in them so there's no clash. Nice.
She's also quite fond of lateral or horizontal legato runs along a single string, as in this example from her original track “After Insanity”, which is played with a five note per beat rhythm – however, this is split into a 16th note triplet followed by a pair of regular sixteenth notes, so think “1 & a 1 &” when you're counting. This run uses the A natural minor running from the G (b7) at the 15th fret to the D (4th) at the 7th fret G. Don't neglect the rhythmic elements when practicing these licks, so tap the foot firmly on each downbeat to ensure you're grounded.
As well as these shred three note per string ideas, Sophie doesn't neglect the humble minor pentatonic, and a couple of tricks she likes to use include string skipping, like this lick in “Highway To Hell” using position 1 of A minor pentatonic at the 17th fret:
And she's not afraid to move laterally around the fretboard, as this lick from “Bullet Proof Revolver” shows, moving across the B string, starting in position 1 and then moving through 2 and 3 before finishing in porition 4 – this lick will be familiar to anyone who's checked out my horizontal/ diagonal pentatonic techniques in Progressive Guitar Training... great minds think alike!
That concludes our examination of Sophie Lloyd's style for now, but there's a LOT more to check out – we haven't touched on her use of arpeggios, for example, or how she integrates sweep picking into her runs... but that's fine, like Neil Zaza it just gives me an excuse to revisit! There's a lot this month that has dovetailed with my own playing – unlike a Steve Vai or Allan Holdsworth, when you get right down to the details, she plays a lot like I do.. just better! Which makes this exercise all the more rewarding.
Next month we're back to the blues, as Freddie King gets another turn under the microscope... until then, stay safe and happy practicing!
