How to get the most out of guitar classes

[Fossegrim]

The only danger I would caution with a lick centered only approach is that learning a lick doesn’t often teach you how to use it in context or with other coloration, and often leaves a lot out when it comes to chord based soloing and phrasing. You will know it works but necessarily why or ways to morph it. For example the lick you posted above works over a stagnant G7, and you could use it over any bluesy Dominant 7th with extensions as well, but playing that lick over every dominant chord may not teach you what’s really going on and why, or what to do the switch it up.

In other words in really takes a multi-pronged approach and you have to hit it from all sides.

[Rubaan]

I understand the danger that you’re describing.

At this moment, I do think I should focus more on creating licks than I did before. I tried some of the exercises that Marcel describes in @Jacklr 's earlier post. I find it so difficult to do something else than walking up and down the scale, maybe skip a note here and there.

But to actually hit chord tones, making use of passing tones, or to actually create a musical sentence, a “musical story”…my goodness, even a 75bpm 1 chord backing track is too fast for me to break out of just playing the scale. I know all triads, etc. I just don’t know it “fast enough” to actually make something with it on the spot.

I’d say the benefit of working on creating licks, is that I have more time to think of something that works, and by creating many of those and rehearsing them, hopefully my muscle memory can kick in during a backing track and help me break out of running up and down the scale.

I have quite some theoretical background and ears to understand when something works or not, and I think I can figure out how to change a lick to make it work on other chords.

The first obstacle is to break out of the habit of running up and down a scale

[Jacklr]

@Fossegrim

The only danger I would caution with a lick centered only approach is that learning a lick doesn’t often teach you how to use it in context or with other coloration

That is true, you should definitely test your licks out against a backing track to see if they work.

@Rubaan

The first obstacle is to break out of the habit of running up and down a scale

Yeah I don’t practice scales up and down anymore for this reason, you just get good at running up and down scales and that’s it

@Rubaan

I’d say the benefit of working on creating licks, is that I have more time to think of something that works, and by creating many of those and rehearsing them, hopefully my muscle memory can kick in during a backing track and help me break out of running up and down the scale.

Exactly! And slowly you’ll develop variations of your licks so it won’t be so rehearsed! You should be able to cycle between them on the fly.

@Rubaan

I tried some of the exercises that Marcel describes in @Jacklr 's earlier post. I find it so difficult to do something else than walking up and down the scale, maybe skip a note here and there.

I was exactly the same when I first started out, I expected to move up and down the scale randomly and hoped it would sound like music and it never did. That’s why I’d take it down to the easiest level and craft your licks 4 notes at a time and practice putting them together. You could create a static G backing track for a while on Strum Machine and try them out and then slowly branch out onto your C and D chords. That’s exactly what I’ve done and my next plan is to play along slowly to bluegrass vocal tunes on Strum Machine and try and make the changes without overly rehearsing them, hoping that eventually I’ll be comfortable enough to do it at high speeds!

Also on the Marcel exercises, I do find the Major Pentatonic harder to make sound interesting, I tend to use lots of the chromatic cliches when playing Major Pentatonic stuff. Minor Pentatonic to me is incredibly easy to come up with cool sounding ideas (probably why everyone loves it), the only avoid note is the P4 but tbh it sounds good a lot of the time as well when mixed with something else. Just remember that in G, the G Minor Pentatonic only really sounds good over the G and you can’t play C Minor Pentatonic over the C or D Minor Pentatonic over the D, it has to be Major Pentatonic, otherwise it will sound weird