Learn a pentatonic lick

Music Lesson: Learning the Lick

Introduction

So, are you ready for our lick? I'm going to teach it to you now, and I think it's going to be a fun one for us at home.

Now, don't be daunted. It sounds hard at first, but we're going to break it down, take it slowly, and then we'll add it to the backing track. Alicia's going to join us with that as well.

Demonstration

Let me play it for you first. This is a beautiful Fender Rhodes I'm using today.

This is how it goes: Two, three, form.

So, that is the full scale or the full lick that we're going to be learning. Let's break this down into chunks.

Chunk 1: The First Bit

The first bit, we're going to try it on an O.

Count: 2, 3, 4. O.

Try it with me, Lita. O

And again, last time.

Chunk 2: The Busy Intervalic Passage

Now, from the end of that phrase, we're going to go straight into a kind of busy little intervalic passage.

It goes: O.

Should we try that? And O.

That's it. Try it again.

And that's it! Getting that little interval nice and accurate is really, really important.

Let's try that again: Three and four.

Chunk 3: The Twist at the End

Now we've got a little twist at the end, this little selection of notes.

It goes: O.

So, we go 1, 2, 3. Down, up, down, up.

So, O, 1, 2, 3, down, up, down, up.

Sing that on: O. O.

Good! If you've got that little bit of a formula in your head towards the end, that will help you get that complicated little passage.

Remember: O, 1, 2, 3. Down, up, down, up.

Putting It All Together

Now, I'm going to sing the whole thing nice and slow, and I'll get Alicia to join me for the second time.

Here we go: Three and four.
One, two, three.
Down, up, down, up.

Here we go, one and two and O.
One, two, three. Da, da, da, da.

That's the one! That's the tricky bit. If you can get your head around that part, you're winning.

Let's go again: Three and four.
O good, let's try it again together.

Great! That's pretty much the tempo that we'll be going at today, so we don't need to worry about going much faster than that.

Conclusion

I've got a lovely backing track, a nice chill pop track for us today to sing that over the top. This is our pentatonic lick that's going to be woven into these beautiful chord changes that we have today.