Yes I have included What Does it Take in my sets for several years. It’s a great tune and of course has Jr Walker’s famous sax lines all over it. It is one that I have thought about making into a backing track. For me to make one it can take several days to a week when I have the time for it. To write out the music, and then record all the instrument tracks form scratch, mix it for the backing track, record my version over it so I can make the video, create the pages and upload everything onto the site and make it download-able, then hook it all up with Paypal. It’s quite a process.

yes, I spent time copying those guys. That’s how one learns! We can’t just create something from nothing. I now have my own licks and tricks but there was a copying period first.
I have the Big Horn too. You can find lots of good stuff to start learning about blues and rock and roll solos. They are all basic 12 bars and usually in a good sax key. I included one of those common and popular riffs in the Killer Blues course, the one based on the 1, 3, 5 which goes up then down (maybe up to the 7th and 8th as well… this is a common base line which we can all use for solo ideas and playing background parts in a group.

Don’t let people tell you that because you’re playing sax to not bother with chords. We need to understand chords as much as a guitar or piano player otherwise we’ll be in the dark much of the time. I stress to learn scales and chords, it’s important and you’ll need them more and more especially if you want to solo over a song and not sound like you don’t know what you’re doing….cause that’s exactly what will happen.
It’s true if you’re just reading or playing the melody you can get away with not knowing the chords but this is limiting.

ya cool version. the sax player just plays Jr Walker’s licks almost the same with the odd slight variation at the end of a few of them but he keeps the main riff identical. They even do it in the same key.

As I think about this tune, the chords, the sax riffs etc I think it is a great one to analyze and dissect to show you guys some important lessons which will help understand the theory regarding the chords, scales and so then how it all relates to what the sax lines are and what we can do to easily copy it and even create our own solo lines that fit properly into it.

It is on my list to do a backing track for. It’s a great tune everybody knows cause it was a huge Motown hit when it came out and so many people have covered it and it’s full of sax riffs. Ya so that’s my thought; a complete lesson on this tune showing you how I figure out the key, the chords involved and so then how easy it can be once we know all this to pick apart the solos.
Does that sound good?

yes for sure. Interestingly, 2 of the 3 Christmas songs I’m working on will have key changes in them. This is called modulation – it modulates (usually up) to a new key. It lets you know with a new key signature as it happens. If you get on to these new Christmas songs you will see a good example of this in action. It works great in music because it provides a real “lift” in a song.