Getting creative with the Blues Scales, licks and riffs

[Michael]

Hi Johnny,
I’ve been working on my Improvised Instrumental of the Blues Brothers and was wondering if you ever have those days where, mentally, it was hard to get “creative”. Yesterday for my practice, the riffs/licks were literally pouring into my mind…today I had such a mental block I couldn’t believe it. It was a good thing I wrote down on paper what I came up with yesterday, otherwise today I wouldn’t have remembered any of it today…talk about frustration. You’ve been Improvising for so, so many years it just seems like you can pull out those Blues Scales and improvise at will and you don’t even think about it. For me just learning about these things, I have listen to the backing track, play with the Scale for quite some time and then try to get creative.

On a side note, I bought “My Girl” from your music selection as soon as I saw the new message on my inbox that you had released it…..that Motown music is GOOD stuff 🙂

[john]

hey Michael, ya, that’s one of the reasons I put those “ready made licks” into the Killer Blues…
if you learn a few of them you can at least start a solo off right and hopefully more will follow. but like you say, sometimes not too much!

[Michael]

I’ve working on learning them right now, I’m on lick 3 and I plan to learn them all LOL..as I’ve mentioned previously I’m going to be in this course for quite some time, at least till the end of this year and probably beyond–I want to get everything possible out of it that I can v.s. just reading/skimming. I don’t like “cherry picking” when I learn something. As I’ve said before, down here in the South the Blues is THE thing people want to hear….who can blame them? All of these famous guys that everyone here loves to listen to on CD/Mp3 like Lee Allen, Big Jay, Red Prysock, King Curtis, it was all about the Blues. Fats Domino is also very popular down here….I love his song of “I’m in Love Again”

I guess learning to use these Blues Scales is a lot like learning another language (it’s almost like another language LOL) The more we use them/play them, the more “fluent” we get? I feel like with the Green Onions that even though it wasn’t perfect and I got some much-needed insights from you, I at least “broke the ice” and little-by-little it’s coming easier to me. But with this next Instrumental I’m taking it another “step” and applying what you told me…it’s getting there. But I tell you….I get REALLY excited at the thought of being able to pull this stuff out, at will, and create my own solos and have other people watching you love it too! 🙂

[john]

when practicing and learning those licks, start thinking about not just the notes you’re playing but what their relationship is to the key you’re in.
so, for example you play this lick: D F F D C D
that’s a common and simple lick in the D minor blues key. now realize the relationship of the notes: 1 m3 m3 1 b7 1
so when you are in a new key and want to learn that lick you can quickly figure it out by recalling those numbers:
new key of A minor blues (same lick) A C C A G A
see how those notes have the same relationship?
that’s how we figure out quick transposition.
as soon as you know your scales inside out you can do this very easily because you’ll know what the 1, m3 5 etc is in all the keys….at least learn the 3 or 4 most popular ones really well first to get some confidence.

[Michael]

Yes, that’s exactly what I’ve doing for the past 2 weeks or so with the first 3 exercises and it’s FAR easier to transpose to other keys like you say when we think of the relationships, given the scale I’m in. Right now, I’m just learning the 7 licks in the keys that you have in that particular lesson–when I get them down really good then I’ll start breaking them down and playing them in other keys, like I’m doing with the first 3 exercises right now. But it’s far, far easier to transpose when we think about those relationships within the scale like you say.
I’m glad you bring out about not just Memorizing a bunch of licks/riffs in 1 key and think that we know this stuff….no way. In fact, just the other day I was responding to someone on your forum about that very thing who had just bought Killer Blues. I was telling him that I’ve been in this course since October and it’s taken a lot of work to understand how this stuff works…that’s 9 months I’ve been into it and I’m just now getting to the point where I can play the first 3 exercises in other keys and I’ll probably be in Killer Blues for another 9 months LOL. I’m not putting any time limits on meeting my playing goals…the trade off has been that I’m starting to notice a major, MAJOR difference in my playing v.s. just memorizing sheet music all the time….and I’ve been told that I “sound” better/more expressive too. I guess that’s because I’ve always had the inner desire to “scream” on the Saxophone LOL

[Author]

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