Advanced Music Lesson: Pushing Your Limits with Licks

So this lesson is for those of you who want to push yourselves a little more.

Review and Purpose

We've been looking at:

• Pentatonic licks
• Dorian licks

Now we can get a little bit faster with these. This lesson returns to our pentatonic scale but in a busier way. It also works with the groove of your backing track today, incorporating a tuplet, something that spreads over the last part of the lick, allowing for speed at the end.

Key Tips

• Start Slowly: When practicing licks, begin slowly and take them bit by bit, chunk by chunk.
• Keep It Precise: Precision is key; when you speed them up, they will sound tidy and really slick.

Lesson Breakdown

I'm going to teach you the lick now. This starts up high on an F.

Vocal Range Note

Girls, even if you want to start in your head voice, that's absolutely fine because we need to come down quite a lot in your vocal range.

Demonstration

Let's start on that F. I'm going to sing it for you now. Wish me luck!

Here we go:

Yay. Yay.

That's the lick.

I'll sing it one more time.

• Y

Now, let me break it down for you before we get onto our backing track.

1. First note: Y - Try that for me.

   • Yeah, one more time.

2. Double Scoop: Scoop, scoop.

   • Yeah, so scoop, scoop.
   • Have those two little scoops; it's almost like singing the same note twice.
   • The scoops help to separate them.

3. Coming Down:

   • Yeah, so three notes: Y, Y.
   • Try it with me: And.

4. Back Up:

   • Yeah, yeah. Nice little bluesy bit in the middle there.
   • Little minor three, if you can hear that there.

We have:

• Y
• Then our last stretch:
  • Yeah, try it for me.

Practice Suggestions

If this lesson is moving a bit quickly for you, don't worry. You can take this bit by bit. I really encourage you to keep rewinding and mastering the different sections before joining them up.

Lick Structure

• Three Big Chunks: We have in this lick.

Backing Track Practice

Shall we try it on the backing track?

If you're feeling ready, let's give this a go. It's a little bit funky today.

Top note reminder:

Here we go:

Yay. Yay.

Let me explain that a little bit.

I'm actually anticipating the big one, so:

• Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's that little bit of anticipation, then I stick to the groove as I come down, followed by a flurry of notes, almost like letting them tumble out at the end.

Final Practice

Let's hear it again:

3. Yay. Yay. Last time. Yay.

Well done! That is a tough one.

• Take your time.
• Keep rewinding this lesson so you can get all the sections as good as they can be before you give it a go.

Sometimes, it's good to have a challenge!