Learning a lick in every key?

[happa95]

Hey everyone,

I have a very quick question that has confused me a bit as I look further into jazz improvisation. Almost every jazz musician I know says to learn every piece of language that you're assimilating in all 12 keys. For wind instruments, this makes perfect sense; for them to learn a lick in different keys, they have to learn new fingerings. However, the part I'm confused about is where we as guitarists stand. For us to learn a lick in a different key, isn't it simply a matter of moving the lick up/down the frets to the appropriate place? I like to learn licks at different registers of the guitar for different sounds, but I don't really understand how to practice licks in different keys. Isn't that just a couple second task? Thank!

[AmundLauritzen]

Yes and no.

But would you be able to transpose the lick on the fly?
This is really where it's at: the vocabulary that's ingrained into your muscle memory. When it's only an intellectualization, it won't be part of your autonomous reaction which is your actual usable vocabulary! Unless you're playing in 40-60bpm in which you'd be able to transpose the licks on the fly. But you get the picture.

Besides, transposing a lick to all 12 keys also makes you own that lick. Really own it! Learning it in other keys strengthens it in the key you would normally play it in. Many people think that practicing in 12 keys is some masochistic approach that players condone to discourage new guys from learning jazz when in fact it is the best way to make sure that whatever you're practicing is available to you in every situation it is possible to play it in!

Don't be the guy who only knows the minor pentatonic scale root position in the key of E minor

[kofblz]

Yes and no.

But would you be able to transpose the lick on the fly?
This is really where it's at: the vocabulary that's ingrained into your muscle memory. When it's only an intellectualization, it won't be part of your autonomous reaction which is your actual usable vocabulary! Unless you're playing in 40-60bpm in which you'd be able to transpose the licks on the fly. But you get the picture.

Besides, transposing a lick to all 12 keys also makes you own that lick.
Don't be the guy who only knows the minor pentatonic scale root position in the key of E minor

I first learned the minor pentatonic in Am.

The main reason you learn a lick in all 12 keys is to learn the fretboard, not to be able to reproduce that very lick anytime, anywhere. You're likely going to forget the lick, more or less, in a few days or weeks anyway. But by moving a lick around the fretboard through all 12 keys, especially the cycle of 4ths, you'll be doing what you do in a jazz tune, modulating through key/chord changes.

When I've done this exercise, I don't play the lick the exact way for very long. That kind of repetition bores me, or perhaps it's from a lack of focus, but I soon start wanting to hear something else.

[randalljazz]

i work on one key per day for most everything (all twelve keys every two weeks); different ways can work--i group by related-ness, i.e., Ami with Cmaj with D7, all one day...next day, Dmi & Fmaj & G7. have heard of established players who focus on one key per month (all 12 in a year)...'fraid my inadequate memory would not be well suited to that long of a cycle...

definitely learn licks in all keys, but get the most benefit by NOT just 'sliding up a fret'...iow, keep the notes, change the string relationships...many benefits to this habit, musical and technical.

[marcwhy]

One of my first jazz teachers would have me learn tunes, and play them in 3-5 different positions on the neck. Obviously, some positions worked better than others on guitar, but the exercise was helpful in spreading my knowledge of the tune/notes across the neck and across different string groups.

I've applied this to "licks" as well: if the lick is best/easiest played on strings 1-2-3, fine, but then learn it on 2-3-4, 3-4-5, etc. It will be in different octaves and diffierent positions, and then other ideas will come out of it. Then go ahead and change keys. Instead of 12 ways to play a line, you will have 50+ ways to "own" it, as someone said above.

Have fun!

[docbop]

Also the process hopefully gets you to look at the line in terms of scale degrees so easy to transpose, that also teaches you the scales degrees being used to understand how its constructed, and finally ear training getting that sound and into your ear to use again or recognize when you hear it again.

[fep]

The 'geography' of the fretboard is such that it doesn't really do much for you to learn a lick in every key.

Play it in G, move up a 1/2 fret and you're playing in Ab. To me that accomplishes absolutely nothing. Learning to play that lick all over the fretboard in the key of G is much more useful than using the same fingering but just shifting frets/keys.

[happa95]

Thank you for all the responses! They've been very helpful! Particularly Fep, your answer exactly addresses what I was wondering about. Thanks!

[fep]

Thank you for all the responses! They've been very helpful! Particularly Fep, your answer exactly addresses what I was wondering about. Thanks!

Cool, I'm glad that helped. I just did a quick demo of the same lick in G (bluesy). Then you could take that same lick practice in another key, say Bb. Then you should have it and be able to play it anywhere in any key.

[chrisnewlin]

Moving the lick up or down the appropriate number of frets just feels like you're not really accomplishing anything. I think the important part of being able to transpose a lick through all 12 keys on guitar is:

A) Being able to play that lick in 1 key all over the neck
B) Being able to play that lick in 1 key on all possible string groups

Then start doing the same for the next key, and so on.
The different string groupings was something I hadn't thought about too much until I had a teacher ask me to do it. That was embarrassing.

[kofblz]

Moving the lick up or down the appropriate number of frets just feels like you're not really accomplishing anything. I think the important part of being able to transpose a lick through all 12 keys on guitar is:

A) Being able to play that lick in 1 key all over the neck
B) Being able to play that lick in 1 key on all possible string groups

Then start doing the same for the next key, and so on.
The different string groupings was something I hadn't thought about too much until I had a teacher ask me to do it. That was embarrassing.

I see these 2 approaches as almost being the same thing. If you do a 12 key exercise you don't just move up a fret, but go around the cycle of 4ths. If you're a real masochist, do it in all positions in all keys. That would be quite an exercise.

[AmundLauritzen]

Moving the lick up or down the appropriate number of frets just feels like you're not really accomplishing anything. I think the important part of being able to transpose a lick through all 12 keys on guitar is:

A) Being able to play that lick in 1 key all over the neck
B) Being able to play that lick in 1 key on all possible string groups

Then start doing the same for the next key, and so on.
The different string groupings was something I hadn't thought about too much until I had a teacher ask me to do it. That was embarrassing.

I agree. Just moving everything up or down a fret will have nowhere near the same effect as transposing it through the cycle of fourths and as you said, learning it on the possible string sets for that lick.

What really helps me internalize a lick is visualizing chord voicings and scale fragments that are part of the "geometry" of the lick so to say. The guitar is a visual instrument so I think why not take advantage of this and create as many "triggers" as possible for each idea!

It's a way of learning that has not only helped me in my own studies, but my students have benefited from it as well. I've not come across anyone who has not learned effectively from this way of doing it.

The only "wrong" way to practice a lick is to just learn the mechanics and leave it at that. It's less likely to make it's way into your playing then. You have to work on creating associations yourself, as many as possible, to your already assimilated vocabulary.

Anyway, just some more thoughts on the matter.

[P4guitar]

Not to be cheeky, but this need is mostly an artifact of the asymmetrical tuning system.

One could tune symmetrically, like a bass player for example, so learning a lick once works identically everywhere on the neck.

[JohnRoss]

Play it in G, move up a 1/2 fret and you're playing in Ab. To me that accomplishes absolutely nothing.

Why? It isn't the be-all and end-all, but it's a beneficial exercise, and it isn't as if it were time-consuming. The distances from fret-to-fret involved are different for your G lick and your Ab lick, admittedly not very different for just this 1 fret/semitone, but still different, and the lower down the neck you are, the bigger the difference. Plus, your left hand is in a different position in relation to your body, the lower the fret, the further away your hand is, usually, and the more outstretched your arm is, so you are using different muscles. Even if you are playing with the neck relatively vertical so that you don't have to extend your arm much, your hand, wrist and arm positions are still changing.

[Mike Floorstand]

Moving a lick up a fourth each time, while keeping within a certain region of the fretboard, could be very productive (depending on the lick). The following exercise takes a M7 arpeggio through the complete cycle of fourths one-and-a-half times, without going below the 5th fret or above the 10th fret:

|--------------------------------|----------------------------8---|
|--------------------------------|------------8-----------9-------|
|----------------------------7---|--------8-------6---10----------|
|------------7-----------8-------|6---10--------------------------|
|--------8-------6---10----------|--------------------------------|
|6---10--------------------------|--------------------------------|

| | | | | | | |
|--------------------------------|--------------------------------|
|------------6-------------------|----------------------------9---|
|--------6-----------------------|------------8-------6---9-------|
|----8-----------------------8---|----6---9-------7---------------|
|9-------------------6---9-------|7-------------------------------|
|----------------7---------------|--------------------------------|

| | | | | | | |
|------------9-------------------|--------------------------------|
|----7---10------------------7---|--------------------------------|
|7-----------------------7-------|------------------------5---9---|
|--------------------9-----------|--------5---9-------7-----------|
|----------------10--------------|----7-----------8---------------|
|--------------------------------|8-------------------------------|

| | | | | | | |
|------------------------6---10--|--------------------------------|
|--------6---10------8-----------|------------8-------------------|
|----7-----------8---------------|--------8-------------------5---|
|8-------------------------------|6---10------------------6-------|
|--------------------------------|--------------------8-----------|
|--------------------------------|----------------9---------------|

| | | |
|----------------------------6---|
|------------6-----------7-------|
|--------6-----------8-----------|
|----8-----------9---------------|
|9-------------------------------|
|--------------------------------|


Some of the patterns are the same - like the first half of bar 1 is the same as the second half, but played on a different stringset, and the first half of bar 3 is the same as the second half of bar 5, but moved up a fret - but overall I think in this case there are 12 distinct fingering patterns.

When I first created this exercise I found there were some shapes I wasn't familar with - say, the one in the second half of bar 2 - and funnily enough, one of the ways I tried to become more familiar, was to just move it sequentially up and down the fretboard one fret at a time - a couple of seconds tasks as you say, but useful at least for that!

[princeplanet]

A while ago I read that for quite some time Dizzy Gillespie only played everything he knew in Bb. Then, when the "signal" in his head was strong for every lick or device he had mastered, he found it easy to move his knowledge to other keys. He simply followed his ears. So, this year, I have tried a similar thing. All new material, devices, lines, solo excerpts etc are mastered in one key, C major, in 5 positions (sometimes 7). At first I thought it was too hard to play certain lines in difficult positions, but I persisted.
I'm glad I did, because an unexpected benefit has emerged. I'm thinking of the sound of the lines, not the "shape", and playing the same line in totally different ways now makes it "feel" the same, whereas for a long while it did not.

Hard to explain why I think that is important, but I feel I can "pre hear" notes I wish to play better in any given position, because of training my mind/ear to expect certain sounds regardless of the fingering required.

Mastering your vocab in one key in all positions makes it easy to then find the same vocab in other keys. You just follow your ear and it tells you when you make fingering mistakes quickly enough for you to find the correct fingering that you have firmly ingrained in C major (or whatever your home base may be).

Maybe Diz was onto something....

[kofblz]

A while ago I read that for quite some time Dizzy Gillespie only played everything he knew in Bb. Then, when the "signal" in his head was strong for every lick or device he had mastered, he found it easy to move his knowledge to other keys

Mastering your vocab in one key in all positions makes it easy to then find the same vocab in other keys.

Maybe Diz was onto something....

I think this is a great idea.

[TSP]

Lots of great advice above

[Mike A]

take a lick and learn it in the same position but up a 4th, and go through the cycle of keys in the same position, you will learn the fretboard really well be much more fluent

[docbop]

A while ago I read that for quite some time Dizzy Gillespie only played everything he knew in Bb. Then, when the "signal" in his head was strong for every lick or device he had mastered, he found it easy to move his knowledge to other keys.

I've been reading Dizzy's book and it was the school band he was in as a kid the woman who ran the band was self-taught and only used head charts. Only key she knew was Bb so Dizzy being a kid thought that was the musical universe. Then he got a gig with a pro band and quickly discovered there were other keys.

Your spot on about the ear. I think one of the big drawbacks of how guitar players typically learn to play is very visual, finger patterns and taking advantage of the slide-rule effect of just moving up and down the neck for other keys or chords. They learn dots on a grid and or tab and don't take the time to understand musical relation between the dots so the ear can learn the sounds. That's were players who are self-taught, street/church players, learning by ear have a advantage they don't even realize they are developing their ears. If they hear it, they can play it. When those cats decide to get serious and start learning the musical names of what they can already hear they become great players.

[coolvinny]

Definitely need to practice in different keys. I like taking it around the cycle of 4ths by using different string sets (i.e. not just shifting up 7 frets to play it in the new key). That way I learn each lick using at least two different positions.

[alphekkai]

Definitely need to practice in different keys. I like taking it around the cycle of 4ths by using different string sets (i.e. not just shifting up 7 frets to play it in the new key). That way I learn each lick using at least two different positions.

I believe that this really is the best approach to expand one's vocab and technique: to play a melody or a progression in all keys staying in the same position on the fretboard as much as possible.

Moving through the 12 keys by a uniform pattern over the cycle of 4th highlights the relationships between keys, their differences, and how they blend.

I experiment moving around the cycle in:

- 4ths (anti-clockwise movement)
- 5ths (clockwise movement)
- 2nds (clockwise movement)


Of course, that is not to say that playing the same line in one key in all positions all over the fretboard is a bad idea.

[bako]

If you play the same melody in 5 frets in 12 keys (in all possible octaves), then the fingerings yielded are exactly the same as if you played in the same key within every group of 5 frets.

[happa95]

Okay, just to clarify, the technique that the majority of you are advocating is this: if I have a cool blues lick in F, choose a position (maybe the 5th or 7th because those lend well to jazz) and stay in that position while playing the same lick in F, then, Bb, then Eb, then Ab, etc. in all possible octaves. Is that correct?

Edit: What about when licks cover multiple positions?