I agree 75% with what you say... If I could go back in time to save myself some time in learning what I know now, I would have told myself to do it differently. I did everything in the wrong order. First learn your ionian/Aeolian (Major/Minor scales) all over the next and connect all 5 patterns. Secondly, learn your pentatonic scales (Major/Minor) + blues notes addons. Practice those scales everyday 5x a day for 5 minutes over and over again until you can move back and forth up and down between all patterns and shapes mixing pentatonic with Major Minor shapes. Thirdly, Learn your 1,3,5 of every chord and notes all over the neck starting with your E strings working your way towards the first 3 frets should be easy enough to memorize. It gets harder to remember the others elsewhere but using scales and remembering Triad combos like CEG, FAC, ACE for your basic chords should be easy enough. Match the CAGED Shapes to your Scales in all positions making sure you notice the Root third and fifth of every position to know the key. Finally, Learn licks to develop some flourishes and cool sounds. Download a metronome/backtrack.... play... After this, if you want to learn a solo, You remember it via scale patterns and deconstruct it into those basic shapes and root notes.
Any of "the masters" I have read about or seen interviews of, on the topic of how they learned to play their instrument, have said something along the lines of "I spent countless hours listening to recordings of my influences and working out parts of songs by ear, working on them till I could play them exactly like they did." What you say in this video is pretty much exactly that - don't learn licks to learn licks that you can spit out again. Learn licks to learn to play and over time learn to take what is in your head and spit it out through your fingers. Thanks for another good (but a bit lengthy, if I'm being honest) video 👍
This just all drops into the whole 'learn the language, then you can use conversation to convey your ideas' point of this video. Of course you learn licks from other players, because that's like learning words from the dictionary. But then when you want to 'talk' you draw from those learned words, and put together a sentence from what is already in your brain. So in the end what you're hearing from the player is their point of view.
This is one of the most important things i've ever seen in a lesson! I believe this is exactly what a lot of young guitar players (including me) struggle with. Everytime i sit down and try to learn new licks it helps to improve my technique but i simply dont feel very efficent when it comes to improvisation and keeping these licks in my mind... to do it that way you would have to spend an enormous amount of time and work in your playing. If you are willing to do so you will probably end up somewhere around the greats but only few of us have the time and the motivation to do that. The thing that you are talking about is basically creating the same "invisible connections" with more efficency... now i know what i have to do and i dont need to bother myself anymore when i forget the licks i was working on 3 months ago! Thanks a lot!
As a guitarist and a language teacher too and I totally agree with you David. The connections you talk about happen and give a real purpose to the study of licks. For some time I've been always referring the things I study to a musical context (scales for example) and trying to think of them as musical ideas. This has helped me to avoid playing up and down the scale like always. Obiously it takes a little more work but once you get it it's totally worth it.
You are the first teacher to sell me on listening to stuff. Not because I dont see the value in learning by ear I just like to learn by playing(more fun). Listening always just seemed like boring work to me, but now I see it is immensely important! Thank you.
Great analogy. The learning process does pick up speed once your lick vocabulary hits a certain point. That's where it triples in fun. Thanks for that discussion.
I love this. Your articulation is very refreshing! I completely get where you're coming from, too - I used to try and play songs/riffs all the time; now I find it slightly more difficult as I've been learning how to progress in my own direction, and it is so much more rewarding!
Pick a key, find a backing track in a style you like, find and semi/memorise those notes, or at least the basic pentatonic scale, play and play and play for hours. you will eventually start to find patterns that work and ideas you can translate to other keys or chords. Learn scales and improvise with them, you'll be surprised how quickly you can start playing something that sounds good.
Brilliant! I have always written my own licks and recorded them if I really like them and when I was younger and playing in tribute bands would learn songs note for note by ear, These days I write for many artists and record my own CD's of instrumental guitar. Your concept is eye opening and I agree. You can't just string a bunch of memorized licks together and call it a fluent improvised solo. My best live solos have been where I have "hit the button" so to speak, where I am "speaking fluently" so to speak with confidence. The solo builds and grows like a well spoken speech. Very interesting David. Thanks for the insight.
Great explanation David, never thought of it this way. I started learning guitar 3 years ago, not easy in your mid forties! My old neurons aren't what they were😂🎸. I don't have a teacher just RUclips. Thank you for taking the time and effort to share and teach. Just subscribed. All the best from across the pond🎸🇬🇧👍🏻
My daughter is at that beginning learning stage of forming sounds and words. What you said totally makes sense about music as a language. I have always said it's the universal language but never really understood how it works like a baby learning. Thanks for the great videos, I really like the thought process behind it all and using a lot of your lessons to learn bass guitar.
I actually get what your saying about that. I have played professionally around the world and in teaching my son the concept of improvisation that is exactly what I have been telling him. I didn’t even realize that was what I had been doing all these years ,until I started to explain how I come up with these phases ,riffs and melodies. Good video and advice for those learning... Thanks, Richie Cash
Truly great players are not just playing other peoples licks. They have found there own way of using the language that is unique to them. Yes you should learn and listen but the goal here is not to copy its to create and use the language in a new way and that doesn't happen by stringing together a bunch of memorized licks. Good points David.
I agree to some degree. I actually had that thought myself not to long ago. I'm not the type to just memorize something. I need to understand whats going on to some degree or I'll just forget it. With licks that means I try to figure out what part of the lick gives it the sound and feel it has and I'll try to remember that instead of tabs.
I actually enjoyed this video, where on many other channels there would be simple pros and cons, you instead brought pros and cons into a more philosophical and deep meaning expression of how to actually learn what to do. Thanks for being a talented speaker, instead of a talking opinionated Wikipedia page
Thanks David. I needed that. Can't memorize licks for anything. Feel much more comfortable now. Clever video... Enjoyed it as well as learned from it. Thanks.
my own licks are studied very very deep and finally they are simple, melodic, confortable, and beautyful. and through the years i've added only few variations. that is why I don't memorize them, cause they are how they have to be and they just ...flow... through my fingers. enjoying video. I like all your video
As a musician living in a foreign country I have taught English as a side job - alongside teaching music, particularly improvised music. It was only natural for me to eventually compare the two. Conversation vs. music improvisation. Then get into some interesting discussions with musicians and language professors. Conversation is similar to improvisation. To learn to have a conversation we must learn the language. Our mother tongues come naturally at first. Imitating intonation, sounds, words, phrases, grammar, et al. Then we study it deeper at school. The better we become at our language the better we can communicate. Music improvisation mirrors this perfectly. In the case of the topic for this video - phrases, or groups of words that make up an idea, can parallel licks. We do learn phrases from others. As babies, we'll stumble to get there, and take short-cuts just to communicate like those around us. Later we might create our own personal phrases, but that comes after learning, and using, the ones we learned. Next, if you want to do the same thing with composition, then we can relate that to books! Anyway, I dig the topic David talks about here, there's a lot to be said. I agree that we should be aware of how to develope the licks we hear instead of trying to simply memorize them all for the sake of knowing them. YEAH!
I have always viewed music as an additional language even before I started playing guitar. I have to agree with some comments about how licks, in a sense, is really part of that language. In spoken language you have letters, words, and sentences at the core. In music you have notes, chords, and licks/phrases. Both ways you are trying to convey an idea or feeling. So, to that end, in school literature teachers would often have you tell something from a book, but in your own words. Licks can be repeated note for note, shortened, or expanded.
The only exception may be is when you're starting out solo/impro, sometimes I have students that are clueless about what to do so I would make them memorize small phrases, 3 to 4 notes, with a couple of effects, bends, slides, ho, po...that give them a "starter". Creativity need to be stimulated at that point. Then from that point on to a more advanced level, I would agree that it's all about developing that creativity . You have to listen and get inspired, play what you hear even if its not totally accurate yet..it will be with time, but memorizing or copying a lick note for note, well...its a lot of time consuming, and personally, to the exception of some symbolic licks/solos, like sultans of swing, maybe...ive never done that otherwise..
Good video thanks. I thought I was crazy by not memorizing licks. And know very few songs but I am capable of playing a guitar solo where needed! Thanks for the vid
At first I thought WTF?? but this is actually a great video. The relation to a baby talking and a beginner playing is the same. Babies babble and beginner players do too. As we progress our music comes together. The Theory guys are like the adults who know several languages...lol Some people talk a lot....shredders. Some not so much.....blues. I love this video!
I think what you are saying would come under the idea of "natural learning" and natural language acquisition. The beauty of natural music learning is we need to have our ears switched on when experimenting. I've tried memorising licks and I end up noticing that I am thinking spatially instead of aurally, and that leads to some very non-musical moments.
Hopefully that way it makes you more unique like a realised I have different style cus I only approximate what I heard think I probably play standard licks backwards or something lol I think everyday to myself what is music and study my kids relations to music etc like the videos man, keep em coming bro, peace.
I have a very large library of recorded licks I pull from. usually I get a melody going and throw in licks when the time is right kinda like gary moores style.
Interesting point David, thanks. Yes, and no! You have to learn licks to start with, but you don't get a good solo from stringing together a bunch of licks. The solo has to say something and go somewhere. Someone said (can't remember who) the three stages of learning improvisation are: Imitation, Assimilation, Innovation. But I guess that's what you're kind of saying.
Funny that you edited in yourself watching the video and thinking it was boring. I was actually really interested this whole time. Great video, thank you
Licks are a great way to develop technique I think but if you want to use them in your solo they always need to be modified so that they fit the melodic statement that you are trying to make. The best way to learn how to solo is to study the music of the greats, learn from the solos and then use that as an inspiration in creating your music!
I think that you shouldn't memorize licks, but that you should keep stuff you come up with in your memory or in a recording for later use in songwriting.
If im correct, Eddy doesnt now how to write or read music. He just memorizes everything and fast. Remember him saying that he had over 2 years at piano lessons before hes teacher noticed that he cant read notes, even tho he could play everything he was asked to play.
oh come on, people complain because the video is 9 minutes long. I stumble upon videos that drag on for 35 minutes and I see nobody complain. I rarely finish those.
And that's how it all started back in the day. You really don't see that happening these days too often but I bet a bands needs a quick guitarist ---that new guitar player is up too their ass in riffs & licks all night w/band until they learn the band songs.
Great idea about "monster" , it's time to learn about monster before playing "monsters licks" communicate an expérience or a vision ... Thank you for sharing theses good advices ;) J-p
Whatever that transition is - from not being able to do to being able to do it - I haven't yet been able to make it over that wall. This thing that apparently "clicks" for players, I haven't gotten to the point where it clicks for me. That aside from just the mechanical aspect of lead playing. I can play chords and riffs out the ass, but as far as lead goes, I still piddle halfassed around that the blues box. Very frustrating.
Aren't licks just really short combinations of a few notes? The scale becomes the alphabet, the notes are letters and licks are words. You construct your own sentences with known words, like you construct sentences, musical ideas using licks as if they were words. That's how some Blues teachers teach it. What's your take on it?
when you speak, you speak words, not letters, because speaking letters = spelling words. So in that analogy I'd say a single note or chord is a word, and when you hear a note in your head you can "speak" the note. We should have the goal to be able to: create our own sentences (=licks, riffs and melodies) with those words (=notes/chords). lol I just gave myself a clear, longterm goal for playing instruments haha. thanks and good luck!
hmm. well different teachers teach their style so therefore; there is a basic basis of harmony such as in scales, notes, and theory. Then personal behavior/ personality is what is entered into ones style through,,,moods etc. True by experience, and practice. ?
While I wouldn't call them "licks" the total musician will spend years learning melodies of every kind and then be able to recall them to mold them to the particular piece.
Thanks! I know it does, the point is not to feel bad forgetting the licks you spend time memorizing. The most valuable gain in my opinion is not in the lick itself, but in the strengthening of the connection between what you hear and what you execute. It happens behind the scenes as you try to memorize the licks. :)
I advise everyone to watch how strve explains how he created for the love of God!awesome video thanks a lot btw same analogy goes with writing normally i have just the main idea and when i write i come out woth loats of new ideas so in orher words at first you need a skeleton then you create muscles then adding flesh!😉
I am not a baby and neither is any body else but I want a private life and I have had enough of being bullied by haters not allowing me to have privacy in my life and every body deserves love all over the world not bullying for 40 years why don't you keep your mind on your music and learn how to be creative with it in technical ways which I know you should not analyse your music any more you should play lots of styles of music instead of jazz fusion all the time it will upset you because it will force you to play instrumentals which will annoy you and then it will make you angry and frustrated as a musician because it is the same style all the time and you must play other styles of technical music because it will make you depressed and make you loose your temper and innocent people will be hurt by your emotions being too much out of control against them because you analyse the music you play too much and then you feel you are a bad guitarist when you are not.Too much thinking about how you play your music is not healthy do not analyse your playing so much let go and practice new rhythms on the guitar new styles of music and let your spirit free itself of critism from yourself and love your daughter and your little son every day because they are not babies and neither am I or any body else who is forced to lose all control of their life all over the world from careless evil people.You have a life to live we do not have a life.to live all over the world.Your life is safe and happy our life is not safe all over the world so please live your life they way you deserve to because you are lucky to have no haters and you are loved by every one on RUclips and around you when we across the whole world are not allowed to live our lives at all and we are left on our own to suffer hate from haters for the rest of our lives and now our life is destroyed and this nightmare life never stops even tho we pray for our life in hell to come to an end to Jesus from nosey evil people that never leave us alone because of something they want from us.Please allow us be freed get some one to pray for us that we can be freed from nosey evil persecuting people for the rest of our lives so we can live a normal life like you and every one else in a real world and not a nightmare dream world of people in authority wasting our time for the rest of our lives.Please can you stop me from preaching to perverted evil nosey people for ever in my life from demonic demonitized idiotic obsessive sick evil people.I ask that all these suffering people along with me can leave our demons behind in their awful world for ever and exodus back to reality.
Totally disagree you go tell that to mike stern carl verheyen charlie parker. Victor Wooton and the list goes on and on. You learn other people licks then add your own flavor to them and make them yours. I understand it is important to learn the the language. But what do you think the language is made up of. Licks
If Charlie Parker was around today...and heard you play his lick...he would laugh you off the bandstand. He would say "I already played that, man. Go find your own stuff."
Not just Joe Pass...any of those famous musicians or any instructor puts an asterisk after their lesson "Don't just take these licks, come up with your stuff. take these ideas and run with them" Everything David Walliman said is just elaborating on that. I agree with the guy above me....learn the theory and then forget it. rather than learn the lick, learn the CONCEPT behind the lick so you can different pieces of the lick and create your own muscle memory.
I'm astounded by how many players know a jillion modes and crazy chords and arpeggios... and they run through this stuff in various ways and call it self-expression -- but they can't begin at a random place on guitar and play "Jingle Bells" or some other well-known melody, perfectly. I can't imagine how a player can truly play new melodies that come to mind, if he can't play "Jingle Bells" without error.
Joshua Flynn, he said learning the licks, and adding your own flavor. So ones personality perception of feelings/ mood's are added. If there is no memorization how would one perform? Where does scales, notes, written music comes from. There must be a beginning. Not everyone dreams symphonies as Mozart experienced with memorization from a dream then put on paper even before performed. :)
You learned all the words, you memorized all the words you know, you are not really inventing anything new, you memorize as much licks as you can during your life plus everything you know about scales and theory and mix them together to come up with your stuff. Didn't really pay attention to the video because the scenes where you are on the chair complaining about the other boring you are distracting. So if that's what you meant I'm sorry in advance.
I agree 75% with what you say... If I could go back in time to save myself some time in learning what I know now, I would have told myself to do it differently. I did everything in the wrong order.
First learn your ionian/Aeolian (Major/Minor scales) all over the next and connect all 5 patterns. Secondly, learn your pentatonic scales (Major/Minor) + blues notes addons. Practice those scales everyday 5x a day for 5 minutes over and over again until you can move back and forth up and down between all patterns and shapes mixing pentatonic with Major Minor shapes.
Thirdly, Learn your 1,3,5 of every chord and notes all over the neck starting with your E strings working your way towards the first 3 frets should be easy enough to memorize. It gets harder to remember the others elsewhere but using scales and remembering Triad combos like CEG, FAC, ACE for your basic chords should be easy enough.
Match the CAGED Shapes to your Scales in all positions making sure you notice the Root third and fifth of every position to know the key.
Finally, Learn licks to develop some flourishes and cool sounds.
Download a metronome/backtrack.... play...
After this, if you want to learn a solo, You remember it via scale patterns and deconstruct it into those basic shapes and root notes.
Any of "the masters" I have read about or seen interviews of, on the topic of how they learned to play their instrument, have said something along the lines of "I spent countless hours listening to recordings of my influences and working out parts of songs by ear, working on them till I could play them exactly like they did." What you say in this video is pretty much exactly that - don't learn licks to learn licks that you can spit out again. Learn licks to learn to play and over time learn to take what is in your head and spit it out through your fingers.
Thanks for another good (but a bit lengthy, if I'm being honest) video 👍
This just all drops into the whole 'learn the language, then you can use conversation to convey your ideas' point of this video. Of course you learn licks from other players, because that's like learning words from the dictionary. But then when you want to 'talk' you draw from those learned words, and put together a sentence from what is already in your brain. So in the end what you're hearing from the player is their point of view.
I find that historically. all players play to sound great. dynamic effort suites the player before it suites the memory
Thank you. Very helpful.
This is one of the most important things i've ever seen in a lesson! I believe this is exactly what a lot of young guitar players (including me) struggle with.
Everytime i sit down and try to learn new licks it helps to improve my technique but i simply dont feel very efficent when it comes to improvisation and keeping these licks in my mind... to do it that way you would have to spend an enormous amount of time and work in your playing. If you are willing to do so you will probably end up somewhere around the greats but only few of us have the time and the motivation to do that.
The thing that you are talking about is basically creating the same "invisible connections" with more efficency... now i know what i have to do and i dont need to bother myself anymore when i forget the licks i was working on 3 months ago!
Thanks a lot!
This is now my go to video for when it's past 2 am, I can't sleep and I need something completely zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz inspiring. Thank you!
As a guitarist and a language teacher too and I totally agree with you David. The connections you talk about happen and give a real purpose to the study of licks.
For some time I've been always referring the things I study to a musical context (scales for example) and trying to think of them as musical ideas. This has helped me to avoid playing up and down the scale like always. Obiously it takes a little more work but once you get it it's totally worth it.
You are the first teacher to sell me on listening to stuff. Not because I dont see the value in learning by ear I just like to learn by playing(more fun). Listening always just seemed like boring work to me, but now I see it is immensely important! Thank you.
Great analogy. The learning process does pick up speed once your lick vocabulary hits a certain point. That's where it triples in fun. Thanks for that discussion.
I love this. Your articulation is very refreshing!
I completely get where you're coming from, too - I used to try and play songs/riffs all the time; now I find it slightly more difficult as I've been learning how to progress in my own direction, and it is so much more rewarding!
Pick a key, find a backing track in a style you like, find and semi/memorise those notes, or at least the basic pentatonic scale, play and play and play for hours. you will eventually start to find patterns that work and ideas you can translate to other keys or chords. Learn scales and improvise with them, you'll be surprised how quickly you can start playing something that sounds good.
Brilliant! I have always written my own licks and recorded them if I really like them and when I was younger and playing in tribute bands would learn songs note for note by ear, These days I write for many artists and record my own CD's of instrumental guitar. Your concept is eye opening and I agree. You can't just string a bunch of memorized licks together and call it a fluent improvised solo. My best live solos have been where I have "hit the button" so to speak, where I am "speaking fluently" so to speak with confidence. The solo builds and grows like a well spoken speech. Very interesting David. Thanks for the insight.
your a very smart guy...you alwa6s make a lot of sence and open my eyes
Great explanation David, never thought of it this way. I started learning guitar 3 years ago, not easy in your mid forties! My old neurons aren't what they were😂🎸. I don't have a teacher just RUclips. Thank you for taking the time and effort to share and teach. Just subscribed. All the best from across the pond🎸🇬🇧👍🏻
Thank you very much for this video. I just last week tried to explain this to some friends and it fell on deaf ears. I will recommend this to them.
My daughter is at that beginning learning stage of forming sounds and words. What you said totally makes sense about music as a language. I have always said it's the universal language but never really understood how it works like a baby learning. Thanks for the great videos, I really like the thought process behind it all and using a lot of your lessons to learn bass guitar.
I actually get what your saying about that. I have played professionally around the world and in teaching my son the concept of improvisation that is exactly what I have been telling him. I didn’t even realize that was what I had been doing all these years
,until I started to explain how I come up with these phases ,riffs and melodies. Good video and advice for those learning... Thanks, Richie Cash
Truly great players are not just playing other peoples licks. They have found there own way of using the language that is unique to them. Yes you should learn and listen but the goal here is not to copy its to create and use the language in a new way and that doesn't happen by stringing together a bunch of memorized licks. Good points David.
To learn from influences is one thing. At some point, however, every guitar player goes his or her own way.
I agree to some degree. I actually had that thought myself not to long ago. I'm not the type to just memorize something. I need to understand whats going on to some degree or I'll just forget it. With licks that means I try to figure out what part of the lick gives it the sound and feel it has and I'll try to remember that instead of tabs.
Not even half way through the video, I really have to say this is very clever and just what I needed to hear. Subscribed
Mathias Justesen Thanks Mathias!
Thank you so much for saying this. I'm a beginning soloist and I dread the idea of memorizing licks.
I actually enjoyed this video, where on many other channels there would be simple pros and cons, you instead brought pros and cons into a more philosophical and deep meaning expression of how to actually learn what to do. Thanks for being a talented speaker, instead of a talking opinionated Wikipedia page
Thank you so much!!
Thanks David. I needed that. Can't memorize licks for anything. Feel much more comfortable now. Clever video... Enjoyed it as well as learned from it. Thanks.
my own licks are studied very very deep and finally they are simple, melodic, confortable, and beautyful. and through the years i've added only few variations. that is why I don't memorize them, cause they are how they have to be and they just ...flow... through my fingers. enjoying video. I like all your video
As a musician living in a foreign country I have taught English as a side job - alongside teaching music, particularly improvised music. It was only natural for me to eventually compare the two. Conversation vs. music improvisation. Then get into some interesting discussions with musicians and language professors. Conversation is similar to improvisation. To learn to have a conversation we must learn the language. Our mother tongues come naturally at first. Imitating intonation, sounds, words, phrases, grammar, et al. Then we study it deeper at school. The better we become at our language the better we can communicate. Music improvisation mirrors this perfectly. In the case of the topic for this video - phrases, or groups of words that make up an idea, can parallel licks. We do learn phrases from others. As babies, we'll stumble to get there, and take short-cuts just to communicate like those around us. Later we might create our own personal phrases, but that comes after learning, and using, the ones we learned. Next, if you want to do the same thing with composition, then we can relate that to books! Anyway, I dig the topic David talks about here, there's a lot to be said. I agree that we should be aware of how to develope the licks we hear instead of trying to simply memorize them all for the sake of knowing them. YEAH!
I enjoy your brand of humor. Nice vid.
Thanks!
I have always viewed music as an additional language even before I started playing guitar. I have to agree with some comments about how licks, in a sense, is really part of that language. In spoken language you have letters, words, and sentences at the core. In music you have notes, chords, and licks/phrases. Both ways you are trying to convey an idea or feeling. So, to that end, in school literature teachers would often have you tell something from a book, but in your own words. Licks can be repeated note for note, shortened, or expanded.
The only exception may be is when you're starting out solo/impro, sometimes I have students that are clueless about what to do so I would make them memorize small phrases, 3 to 4 notes, with a couple of effects, bends, slides, ho, po...that give them a "starter". Creativity need to be stimulated at that point. Then from that point on to a more advanced level, I would agree that it's all about developing that creativity . You have to listen and get inspired, play what you hear even if its not totally accurate yet..it will be with time, but memorizing or copying a lick note for note, well...its a lot of time consuming, and personally, to the exception of some symbolic licks/solos, like sultans of swing, maybe...ive never done that otherwise..
Good video thanks. I thought I was crazy by not memorizing licks. And know very few songs but I am capable of playing a guitar solo where needed! Thanks for the vid
Very insightful. This video really spoke to me on many levels, thank you
I actually really like that concept... That was super insightful
At first I thought WTF?? but this is actually a great video. The relation to a baby talking and a beginner playing is the same. Babies babble and beginner players do too. As we progress our music comes together. The Theory guys are like the adults who know several languages...lol Some people talk a lot....shredders. Some not so much.....blues. I love this video!
Thanks - this is just what I needed for a Sunday afternoon nap.
There is a book called Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art that speaks that u r saying. Good video
I watched the whole video, and I came up with some positive ideas while listening to you talk.
I had the same question before and glad to get this interesting insight. Thanks for sharing.
great post
I think what you are saying would come under the idea of "natural learning" and natural language acquisition. The beauty of natural music learning is we need to have our ears switched on when experimenting. I've tried memorising licks and I end up noticing that I am thinking spatially instead of aurally, and that leads to some very non-musical moments.
Hopefully that way it makes you more unique like a realised I have different style cus I only approximate what I heard think I probably play standard licks backwards or something lol I think everyday to myself what is music and study my kids relations to music etc like the videos man, keep em coming bro, peace.
I have a very large library of recorded licks I pull from. usually I get a melody going and throw in licks when the time is right kinda like gary moores style.
I don't know if you did it but you should advise to everyone to read "The music lesson" by Victor L.wooten
Interesting point David, thanks. Yes, and no! You have to learn licks to start with, but you don't get a good solo from stringing together a bunch of licks. The solo has to say something and go somewhere. Someone said (can't remember who) the three stages of learning improvisation are: Imitation, Assimilation, Innovation. But I guess that's what you're kind of saying.
Yep! :)
Excellent analogy. Very much enjoyed this video :)
Funny that you edited in yourself watching the video and thinking it was boring. I was actually really interested this whole time. Great video, thank you
Licks are a great way to develop technique I think but if you want to use them in your solo they always need to be modified so that they fit the melodic statement that you are trying to make. The best way to learn how to solo is to study the music of the greats, learn from the solos and then use that as an inspiration in creating your music!
I really love your music philosophy but.... let me know when it´s over, haha ! Thank you David !!
I think it's over now - oh wait... not yet. Ok, over now! ;)
)) Great lesson as always !
Nice insights - thanks.
I think that you shouldn't memorize licks, but that you should keep stuff you come up with in your memory or in a recording for later use in songwriting.
Brilliant insights! Thanks a lot!
do you have a daily practice routine
If im correct, Eddy doesnt now how to write or read music. He just memorizes everything and fast. Remember him saying that he had over 2 years at piano lessons before hes teacher noticed that he cant read notes, even tho he could play everything he was asked to play.
oh come on, people complain because the video is 9 minutes long. I stumble upon videos that drag on for 35 minutes and I see nobody complain. I rarely finish those.
alleygh0st As my father used to quip: "Some people would complain if they were hung with a new rope!"
And that's how it all started back in the day.
You really don't see that happening these days too often but I bet a bands needs a quick guitarist ---that new guitar player is up too their ass in riffs & licks all night w/band until they learn the band songs.
I like the idea of learning from the lick rather then just repeating licks
after watching this video over and over and over and over i get the point :)
Makes sense, and now I don't feel so bad about falling asleep during your videos.
Hahaha! I love it! :)
enjoyed every second of this. Cheers
Thanks!
Truefire is really mad at you right now :p
Haha!
Great idea about "monster" , it's time to learn about monster before playing "monsters licks" communicate an expérience or a vision ... Thank you for sharing theses good advices ;)
J-p
Always enjoyable videos...thanks.....
Whatever that transition is - from not being able to do to being able to do it - I haven't yet been able to make it over that wall. This thing that apparently "clicks" for players, I haven't gotten to the point where it clicks for me. That aside from just the mechanical aspect of lead playing. I can play chords and riffs out the ass, but as far as lead goes, I still piddle halfassed around that the blues box. Very frustrating.
Aren't licks just really short combinations of a few notes? The scale becomes the alphabet, the notes are letters and licks are words. You construct your own sentences with known words, like you construct sentences, musical ideas using licks as if they were words. That's how some Blues teachers teach it. What's your take on it?
when you speak, you speak words, not letters, because speaking letters = spelling words. So in that analogy I'd say a single note or chord is a word, and when you hear a note in your head you can "speak" the note. We should have the goal to be able to: create our own sentences (=licks, riffs and melodies) with those words (=notes/chords). lol I just gave myself a clear, longterm goal for playing instruments haha. thanks and good luck!
hmm. well different teachers teach their style so therefore; there is a basic basis of harmony such as in scales, notes, and theory. Then personal behavior/ personality is what is entered into ones style through,,,moods etc. True by experience, and practice. ?
This a very, very insightful and intelligent video. Great job.
kevin
there is power in the narrative!
You look like my Uncle. He's a bass player, but is kickass on guitar.
Funny video, great points. Thanks.
A human? Some can. Well, Allan Holdsworth could. But who's to say he was human?
speaking is a form of vocal improvisation.
While I wouldn't call them "licks" the total musician will spend years learning melodies of every kind and then be able to recall them to mold them to the particular piece.
An instrument is a second voice.Solos are like a really excited rant
It's interesting. I think, you're right.
Zabardast.....cheers mate....from Canada!!!
retitle the video to don't be paul gilbert. 😂
still my favorite guitarist
"My 3 month old son can't talk yet". Neither can some adults who are politicians!😆
I don't know what your alter ego is talking about. This is good stuff.
You are the BEST
Am I the only one who kept expecting this video to be interrupted by his mom yelling down the stairs to tell him that his snack was ready?
+failuremagnet hahaha!
Learn FROM the lick. Make it your own.
Are you a stunt pilot for Joe Bonamasa??
Awesome video.
Hollywood actually got the idea for inception by watching this video, true story
Hey fellow Dad, "scared monsters" is nothing to worry about...it's when you start saying "scared boyfriends."
I am exactly the same with that lol and a few things you mention lol
I tried,heaven knows I tried, but 6 minutes was all I could take..
David I m full aware that your very knowledgeable. but this sounds counter intuitive.
Thanks! I know it does, the point is not to feel bad forgetting the licks you spend time memorizing. The most valuable gain in my opinion is not in the lick itself, but in the strengthening of the connection between what you hear and what you execute. It happens behind the scenes as you try to memorize the licks. :)
Mucle memory? Does it exist??
i agree 1000 %
Not a bad video lesson. Would have been better if under 5 minutes.
music isn't language, music is math!
MATH IS BORING MUSIC IS EMOTION IN SOUND
Its evolution.
I advise everyone to watch how strve explains how he created for the love of God!awesome video thanks a lot btw same analogy goes with writing normally i have just the main idea and when i write i come out woth loats of new ideas so in orher words at first you need a skeleton then you create muscles then adding flesh!😉
Je pense donc je joue ... I think so I play ...
Hand me a guitar and i will play ' seasons in the abyss' when iam talking or are distracted.Strange.
0:56 LOL
JOHNNY WINTER MOST DEFINITLY COULD TILL HE GOT TOO OLD
I am not a baby and neither is any body else but I want a private life and I have had enough of being bullied by haters not allowing me to have privacy in my life and every body deserves love all over the world not bullying for 40 years why don't you keep your mind on your music and learn how to be creative with it in technical ways which I know you should not analyse your music any more you should play lots of styles of music instead of jazz fusion all the time it will upset you because it will force you to play instrumentals which will annoy you and then it will make you angry and frustrated as a musician because it is the same style all the time and you must play other styles of technical music because it will make you depressed and make you loose your temper and innocent people will be hurt by your emotions being too much out of control against them because you analyse the music you play too much and then you feel you are a bad guitarist when you are not.Too much thinking about how you play your music is not healthy do not analyse your playing so much let go and practice new rhythms on the guitar new styles of music and let your spirit free itself of critism from yourself and love your daughter and your little son every day because they are not babies and neither am I or any body else who is forced to lose all control of their life all over the world from careless evil people.You have a life to live we do not have a life.to live all over the world.Your life is safe and happy our life is not safe all over the world so please live your life they way you deserve to because you are lucky to have no haters and you are loved by every one on RUclips and around you when we across the whole world are not allowed to live our lives at all and we are left on our own to suffer hate from haters for the rest of our lives and now our life is destroyed and this nightmare life never stops even tho we pray for our life in hell to come to an end to Jesus from nosey evil people that never leave us alone because of something they want from us.Please allow us be freed get some one to pray for us that we can be freed from nosey evil persecuting people for the rest of our lives so we can live a normal life like you and every one else in a real world and not a nightmare dream world of people in authority wasting our time for the rest of our lives.Please can you stop me from preaching to perverted evil nosey people for ever in my life from demonic demonitized idiotic obsessive sick evil people.I ask that all these suffering people along with me can leave our demons behind in their awful world for ever and exodus back to reality.
I’m not sure I followed what you said...
Totally disagree you go tell that to mike stern carl verheyen charlie parker. Victor Wooton and the list goes on and on. You learn other people licks then add your own flavor to them and make them yours. I understand it is important to learn the the language. But what do you think the language is made up of. Licks
If Charlie Parker was around today...and heard you play his lick...he would laugh you off the bandstand. He would say "I already played that, man. Go find your own stuff."
Not just Joe Pass...any of those famous musicians or any instructor puts an asterisk after their lesson "Don't just take these licks, come up with your stuff. take these ideas and run with them" Everything David Walliman said is just elaborating on that. I agree with the guy above me....learn the theory and then forget it. rather than learn the lick, learn the CONCEPT behind the lick so you can different pieces of the lick and create your own muscle memory.
I'm astounded by how many players know a jillion modes and crazy chords and arpeggios... and they run through this stuff in various ways and call it self-expression -- but they can't begin at a random place on guitar and play "Jingle Bells" or some other well-known melody, perfectly. I can't imagine how a player can truly play new melodies that come to mind, if he can't play "Jingle Bells" without error.
Craigl Lacour64 , I agree.
Joshua Flynn, he said learning the licks, and adding your own flavor. So ones personality perception of feelings/ mood's are added. If there is no memorization how would one perform? Where does scales, notes, written music comes from. There must be a beginning. Not everyone dreams symphonies as Mozart experienced with memorization from a dream then put on paper even before performed. :)
repper duece... really? You must be Canadian.
ngomong tok!!!
日
You learned all the words, you memorized all the words you know, you are not really inventing anything new, you memorize as much licks as you can during your life plus everything you know about scales and theory and mix them together to come up with your stuff. Didn't really pay attention to the video because the scenes where you are on the chair complaining about the other boring you are distracting. So if that's what you meant I'm sorry in advance.