10 Easy Licks Every Jazz Musician Should Know

first lick is so simple yet sounds so good I remember when I learned it I was a freshman in high school I'm in the Band room and I hear this this other kid this older kid play this lick I'm like what is that once I figured it out I realized hey everybody Jeff Schneider here back again with more chord Theory and soloing insights for jazz r b and gospel musicians look learning Jazz isn't some abstract concept it's just like learning a language and if you want to speak it fluently you've got to know your licks this first lick is so simple yet sounds so good just a major seven arpeggio with an extra note at the beginning so here's the lick and I'll break down real quick so instead of just arpeggiating a major seven chord like one three five seven you just add the seven at the beginning of the lick and you can do rhythmic variations on this as well here it is with a triplet you hear this line all the time in jazz solos and it works really well as a way of starting off a new line check this out [Music] so that's lick number one let's call it the Freshman since I learned it my freshman year in high school lick number two is a variation on the Freshman but we're gonna do it on a minor chord instead of a major chord so this time it's gonna arpeggiate from the two to the three to the five to the seven to the nine [Music] moving on to lick number three this is another variation on the Freshman but we're gonna do it in reverse and bring back that triplet Rhythm and by reverse I mean we're going to start at the top with that nine and come down you'll often hear this lick with one extra note at the end where it resolves down to the root of the chord here's one more example using lick number three I'm going to take the line and transpose it over different Chords it's going to be the same line over and over again but it still sounds good it doesn't get repetitive it just sounds hip check it out look number four we're gonna call the Giant Steps lick because it seems to show up a lot in people's solos when they're improvising over Giant Steps but even though Giant Steps is a challenging tune to solo on this lick is really really easy it's only four notes we're gonna go one two three five [Music] you can also use this lick exactly as is on a dominant seventh chord or you can start a tritone away and start the lick on the flat five this is a great way to start messing around with tritone substitution in your solos now let's go back to Major Seventh chords but start it on the five The Fifth Scale degree so now you have five six seven nine now just like with language where you take words and put them together to create sentences you can do the same thing with licks so here's an example where I'm going to combine the Giant Steps lick starting on the five going right into the Freshman which we discussed in lick number one [Music] let's keep it moving here lick number five is another quickie this is going to be on a minor chord we're going to go five three two one I call this the turnaround lick because it shows up in the tune turnaround by ornette Coleman this one also sounds good on a dominant seventh chord you go nine seven six five let's build that one out a little bit we're going to take the chord progression C7 going to F major seven so that's a five chord going to a one chord here is the turnaround lick starting on the nine of the five chord and then we're gonna do the same thing the same little four note lick but do it a tritone away and get some of that tritone substitution action that I mentioned earlier all right lick number six this is another one I learned in high school and when I figure this out it just it blew my mind because I was finally able to get that Bebop sound that I was after and it's another minor seven chord lick we're gonna play this going from the two to the three to the major seven to the two and resolve it to the one this is another one that works really well as a way of starting off a line so here's an extended version of lick number six [Music] by the way we're going to call this one the minor Bebop lick and now let's do another combo here where I'm going to take the the example I just played and follow it up with the turnaround lick that we did earlier with that little tritone thing and you'll hear what that sounds like this is over a two five one progression in C major so D minor seven g seven C Major seven check this out [Music] now by the way the reason I'm naming all of these licks is so that they're easier to remember becomes especially useful when you start sequencing these licks as I'm doing here look number seven means a lot to me this was the first lick that I practiced in all 12 keys I was 17 years old staying up all night practicing this thing as fast as I could I got it right out of the Charlie Parker Omni book he plays it in just about every solo so we're going to call this one the bird Bebop lick and here's what it sounds like when you take it through some other keys [Music] thank you now speaking of transposing if you want to learn these licks and memorize them and internalize them so that they come out in your improvised solos and sound natural instead of forced and awkward it's really important that you can play these licks in all 12 Keys now if you're new to transposing it can be a real pain at first but something that can make it a lot easier is my free chord scale charts called the last chord scale charts you'll ever need and when you download that and there's a link in the description below you're gonna have a reference that's gonna help you learn your scales faster and help you better understand the relationship between the scales and the chords which will help making transposing these licks so much easier but let's keep moving lick number eight it's called the David Baker Bebop lick and it sounds like this this lick was made popular in the jazz education Circles by you guessed it and it uses the first few notes of the Bebop scale and this one also sounds good a tritone away on dominant chords lick number nine also features the Bebop scale but the entire thing and this one is from Coltrane again in Giant Steps he plays this lick a few times during that solo [Music] here it is on its own and let's call this one the train Bebop scale lick all right finally here is link number 10 from part one this is called the Donna lilik because it's featured in the tune Donnelly made famous by Charlie Parker it's a simple arpeggio going from the three to the five to the seven to the nine and then it comes back down to the six followed by the five here it is and if you noticed this one is on a dominant seventh chord and it's also going to work well a tritone away [Music]

Channel: Jeff Schneider

Views: 291,047

Keywords: jazz improvisation, Jazz Tutorial, Easy Jazz Licks, Music Lessons, Beginner Jazz Techniques, Jazz Improvisation Tips, Jazz Guitar Lessons, Jazz Piano Basics, Jazz Saxophone Techniques, Tips for Jazz Musicians, Learn Jazz, Jazz Solo Tips, Jazz for Beginners, Iconic Jazz Licks., jazz guitar licks, guitar licks for soloing, jazz tutorial piano, paul davids guitar, jazz guitar lick, jazz guitar licks you must know, jazz guitar licks for beginners, jazz guitar licks 2 5 1

Id: DqWyncmN4Ko

Length: 6min 44sec (404 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 06 2023