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Ran across this YouTube channel the other day. Seems most videos are less than a minute long and focus on one lick “in the style of”. Also has kind of a need tab viewer showing the notes/scale position played. Looks like a treasure trove of licks for anyone looking to expand their lick vocabulary.
Link is to the most recent lesson, a Rory Gallagher lick in Cm.
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Hi, I am new to the forum. I have been practicing and learning quite a few licks by now. I have a question that I hope someone can help me with. I always hear Brian say e.g. “I saw Eric Clapton play this lick and then I really wanted to learn it.” How do any of you manage to keep a mental file or something to remember and find so many licks in your head or elsewhere? How can you store them? Tell me that there’s a doable way other than having a super memory to pull these licks out. Is there a way to catalogue them electronically. Brian, thank you so much for these lessons. You are making an old guitar player very happy.
Kevin LaPrise
Denver, Co.
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Welcome to the forum, Kevin! I’ll take a stab at answering this. What works for me is likely vastly different than what others might do.
I don’t keep a formal “lick library”, as I’m not that disciplined. For me, it’s more of a way to inspire me to incorporate something into my own playing, or to better help me understand how to play a certain song. For me, if I can’t incorporate something into my own playing, it seems pointless to just be able to play some random lick. If I were to objectively look at my playing style, there are definitely several “stock phrases” that I use over and over again that I’ve adopted as my own. As time goes on, these stock phrases will evolve or will be added to as a result of a number of factors like exposure to new ideas and your overall increase of experience and playing ability. Brian’s Blues Lead Course was a critical component to helping me form my stock phrases. What’s important is it wasn’t just replicating what he played- it was understanding where that fit into a particular scale or position on the fretboard so as to be able to play it in any key.
Lastly, I’ll share one more thing. For me, tab was an unreliable way for me to learn something. It was just too intimidating for me to see all of those numbers and such and be able to play with any amount of fluidity. (and this is from someone who in an earlier life was able to sight read musical notes on a standard staff and play them at a reasonably high level on the trumpet…) For me, once I figured out how to transcribe what I heard in a particular song onto paper in the form of tab, it really opened up a lot for me. Now, I can listen to a lot of songs and have a pretty good idea on where to begin to be able to play them. Perhaps not note for note but knowing where your starting point is on the neck is a huge advantage. Transcribing is a skill I would always recommend someone learn how to do. Doesn’t have to be an entire solo, either. This is where stuff like this lick library or the licks Brian shares in his BLC come from- bits and pieces, cross-sections of a song that contain a phrase that is readily identifiable as what may have been a stock phrase of another musician.
Sorry for the rambling answer here but hopefully it helped!
Mark
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