[this is an excerpt from The Underground Guitar Artists Runbook training series (via emails) modified for publishing here. If you’ve not already a member, you can get free access here.]
Do you have in place a clear and effective method of practicing licks?
Most guitarists unfortunately practice new licks wrong.
Christian is a talented beginner/intermediate, a mainly self-taught guitarist who has taken a few sporadic guitar lessons since a young age.
He recently stumbled upon a new book with 100 licks from his favorite players.
All their “signature” licks can be found there.
Immediately he thought that this book could make him finally sound like a real guitar virtuoso.
So he proceeds to purchase without further delay.
He was excited.
He opened it and start practicing the first 1-2 licks.
After a few minutes, he stopped and started flipping through the rest of the pages.
He listened to the audio samples and shortly after he closed the book and hold it in his hands.
Even if he was happy with his purchase, he couldn’t figure out how to put the licks into his playing.
How he could make them work and sound like real licks and not exercises?
He felt frustrated.
He put the book on his desk, hoping that he would get busy with it soon.
The truth is that he hasn’t opened it since then.
The “soon” became “later”.
The “later” turned into months.
And the months into years.
Probably during these years, other books have been put aside for “later” too.
For when he finally would be able to figure out a little more how the guitar works…
Christian is not a real person.
But his story can describe my situation as a self-taught guitarist in my teens.
Perhaps, It can describe yours as well.
The situation was completely started to change though since I committed to a learning system and took my first guitar lessons.
Shortly after, I came up with an idea of how to practice not only licks but also technique exercises in such a way that everything works in relation to the others.
In that way, I was able to organise and incorporate in my playing everything new I learn organically.
This means that new elements could find a place in my playing quick and in a creative way, without sounding like stacking exercises and finally escaping from Christian’s situation.
At first, it was a rough concept.
But little by little, it turned into a complete method, which I’m gonna unpack in detail.
Firstly though, let’s see the real problem behind Christian’s case.
Christian at first felt the need of enhancing his music vocabulary by learning new licks.
What’s better than a full collection of his favorite guitar virtuosos licks.
He then tried to practice them and even he was able to reproduce them, he wasn’t been able to actually put them to work.
So, he put the book aside and returned back to square one.
Notice that none of the above is the actual problem.
Instead, they are all symptoms of a big problem.
The lack of a system in place to attach the licks to the fretboard knowledge.
He tried to learn the licks unrelatedly to anything else.
So, I focused on that problem and developed a method to help guitar students learn how to make licks actually work.
[I reveal the title in PS :-)]
Tomorrow I’m gonna unpack this method in detail, giving specific examples and diagrams.
Because several images will be included, please make sure that you’ve already whitelisted my email address as described in email #1 of this series.
That way tomorrow’s email won’t end up in to junk folder and images will be properly displayed.
Talk tomorrow!
P.S. Notice how Christian made the same mistake I made and describe in email #2 of this series. [remember this is an excerpt from the UGAR email training series]
He noticed some symptoms and tried to solve the problem by purchasing a book that would apparently work.
The method I’m gonna develop tomorrow works great along with The Fretboard Passepartout Course and it’s titled The Lick Passepratout Method.
Both of them target mapping out the fretboard in a creative way with the first working from the CAGED system perspective and the latter from the lick learning one.
By having both in place you can develop really solid soloing skills.
More details tomorrow!