Your licks are too short!

[jzucker]

Just kidding. Props to Christian for creating a great thread with lots of interesting points of view.

When I studied with Pat, he specifically called out the ability to work on long jazz lines and showed me an exercise very similar to this one. This is not to say Christian is not right. I think what he says is valid and a very important concept.

But these lines are very fun to play and helpful for learning the fingerboard...

Here's the ascending version

[frabarmus]

Wow! two consecutive first finger-shifts! That's new ground for me... I had never even considered it! Like a micro-slide (or slur). Difficult to keep precision/accuracy at fast tempos. Django was a master at this.

[jzucker]

Wow! two consecutive first finger-shifts! That's new ground for me... I had never even considered it! Like a micro-slide (or slur). Difficult to keep precision/accuracy at fast tempos. Django was a master at this.

I guess he had to be!

[Reg]

Hey Jack... LOL... I love your Stuff

Compound Spider drills. I'm not hip with Martino drills... does he also push playing the lick in reverse.. low to High.

I know as a kid... I loved technical drills... and found that my technique really improved, like fast, both hands etc.

I know it's great to use, create relationships with and develop short licks. but generally you still are hearing a much longer phrase or Lick. The keep the bigger picture together ... everything just keeps getting subdivided etc...

Hope your doing well
Thanks
Reg

[Christian Miller]

You got there before me haha


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jzucker]

Hey Jack... LOL... I love your Stuff

Compound Spider drills. I'm not hip with Martino drills... does he also push playing the lick in reverse.. low to High.

I know as a kid... I loved technical drills... and found that my technique really improved, like fast, both hands etc.

I know it's great to use, create relationships with and develop short licks. but generally you still are hearing a much longer phrase or Lick. The keep the bigger picture together ... everything just keeps getting subdivided etc...

Hope your doing well
Thanks
Reg

Thanks Reg. In my 1 year+ studying with Martino and also transcribing a ton of his stuff, i never heard him do these long, multi-position licks ascending!

I did one recently though...

[jzucker]

You got there before me haha


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

thanks, love your work!

[sgcim]

thanks, love your work!

When you compare Pat's ideas with Wes', Tal's Raney's and Joe Pass', they're way more involved than all of them. Joe pass' licks are the most basic.
The other guys are about equal, with Tal being the most complicated of the three.
Hey jzucker, I did a search on Danny Gatton, and you said in a thread that you played with him. What was that like?

[Mick-7]

The line is long but not at all complicated, it's just a D major scale with chromatic passing tones.

So it does not qualify as a "lick." It's a modified scale.

Twelve tone patterns can be good source material for long "licks"

For example, here is pattern #359 from Nicholas Slonimsky's Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns:

e|------------------------------------1-----|
B|-----------------------2--------------1--|
G|-----------2-------------1----4---------|
D|--------1----2----5-------4------------|
A|--3--1---------5------------------------|
E|-------------------------------------------|

And you can combine a half dozen (6 notes) of one 12 tone pattern with a half dozen of another.

[jzucker]

The line is long but not at all complicated, it's just a D major scale with chromatic passing tones.

So it does not qualify as a "lick." It's a modified scale.

I searched IEEE for lick and found nothing

"lick" site:IEEE.com

So i'm not sure you can disqualify my "lick" based on any known criteria. The fact that it falls within a scale with passing tones is irrelevant to whether it's a lick or not.

According to many standards organizations, 99.9% of bop licks fall within boundaries of certain theoretical tenets we all agree on.

[Mick-7]

Jack, I'm saying that if the topic of discussion is creating long licks, as your thread title implies, learning long scale patterns is not a productive way to do that.

Can we agree that a "lick" is a distinct musical phrase? In my mind, a scale pattern does not fit that definition (so the pattern I shared in my previous post won't fit the bill either).

What would be a productive approach to creating longer licks? Is there a good formula/formulae for it? I have some ideas, and would like to hear your own and other forum members thoughts on the subject.

As food for thought, here's a long lick from Eric Dolphy (pardon the guitar tab, I have no music notation software on this pc).

Eric Dolphy - G.W.

e|------------------------------------------------|
B|--------------------------------------------5--|
G|--5--3--2-----------------------------2-----|
D|-------------5--4------------2-----3--------|
A|--------------------6--3--4-----5------------|
E|------------------------------------------------|

P.S. - That's not where Dolphy ended this phrase but it won't help to follow him into the ether.

[jzucker]

I disagree. In fact, this "lick" was shown to me by Pat Martino originally and it's a way he had of learning to play lines over the entire fingerboard. It's actually a VERY PRODUCTIVE way to learn that technique and I have successfully used this approach for years to teach people how to play over complicated tunes such as Giant Steps, Countdown, etc.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

Jack, I'm saying that if the topic of discussion is creating long licks, as your thread title implies, learning long scale patterns is not a productive way to do that.

Can we agree that a "lick" is a distinct musical phrase? In my mind, a scale pattern does not fit that definition (so the pattern I shared in my previous post won't fit the bill either).

What would be a productive approach to creating longer licks? Is there a good formula/formulae for it? I have some ideas, and would like to hear your own and other forum members thoughts on the subject.

As food for thought, here's a long lick from Eric Dolphy (pardon the guitar tab, I have no music notation software on this pc).

Eric Dolphy - G.W.

e|------------------------------------------------|
B|--------------------------------------------5--|
G|--5--3--2-----------------------------2-----|
D|-------------5--4------------2-----3--------|
A|--------------------6--3--4-----5------------|
E|------------------------------------------------|

P.S. - That's not where Dolphy ended this phrase but it won't help to follow him into the ether.

[Mick-7]

I disagree. In fact, this "lick" was shown to me by Pat Martino originally and it's a way he had of learning to play lines over the entire fingerboard. It's actually a VERY PRODUCTIVE way to learn that technique and I have successfully used this approach for years to teach people how to play over complicated tunes such as Giant Steps, Countdown, etc.

I fail to see how practicing a single scale (D Major in this case, with passing tones) is going to help one improvise over complicated tunes like those you mentioned? (which shift tonal centers every couple of bars).

These lines are helpful for learning the fingerboard.

That part I can see, practicing scales all over the fret-board is not a novel idea, but whether it's an effective way to become a better improvisor is doubtful, thank you.

[pamosmusic]

Ohhhhhhhhh ask Barry Harris if a big, fifteen-note, one-octave scale is unhelpful for improvising.

Incredibly helpful in cells … but I never really noticed how very Pat Martino it sounds when you just blast the whole thing off in one go.

(though his is not the same as the one in the video, so far as I can tell. cool idea still, with the way you can use those direction changes to instruct you on how to shape lines in pretty cool and convincing ways.)

[ccroft]

It matters not a fig to me what these things are called or what they're best used for. I've enjoyed learning some of them. I don't plan to use them verbatim unless someone says "can you play me some Pat Martino?"

The 'consecutive finger shift' was a new one on me too. I never would've come up with that. It has a sound. I've been experimenting with it in other situations. Like the chromatic descending line in Isotope.

As I said in one of the earliest posts by Mr Zucker on this, I thank him for finally allowing me to know exactly what Pat was doing. I learned by playing along with LP's about 55 years ago. After a couple years with Django, Wes and Kenny I got a hold of a Martino record or 2. I really wanted to get to the bottom of these passages and I tried really hard, but I just couldn't hear that fast. Didn't have the chops either of course, but it starts with hearing.

Thanks again Jack!

Sincerely,
Charles

[Mick-7]

Ohhhhhhhhh ask Barry Harris if a big, fifteen-note, one-octave scale is unhelpful for improvising.

Jack's scale pattern is a heck of a lot longer than 15 notes , the Eric Dolphy phrase I posted has 13 notes (and it didn't end there).

I'm not trying to win an argument here, I think it's an important topic worth discussing. But it is the first time I've heard anyone refer to an 8 bar phrase (or however long the Martino one is) as a "lick."

I mean, isn't the whole point of a lick/phrase that you can grasp it's structure and transpose it to other keys/ tonal centers?

P.S. - I suppose we've already covered this subject in detail in Christian's thread on licks? Perhaps just a disagreement on how long is too long.

[pamosmusic]

P.S. - I suppose we've already covered this subject in detail in Christian's thread on licks? Perhaps just a disagreement on how long is too long.

You're getting awfully hung up on the specific word "lick" but my guess is that Jack used that word primarily to make a little fun at Christian's video.

They are, after all, somewhat in dialogue.

[Bobby Timmons]

Jazz is a combination of short motifs, often sequenced, and longer lines.

[jzucker]

I mean, isn't the whole point of a lick/phrase that you can grasp it's structure and transpose it to other keys/ tonal centers?

one of the exercises I have my students do is learn this 15 fret pattern in all keys, then i have them learn it in all positions, and then I have them go through exercises where they play over chord changes using similar lines to this, superimposing them over min7, Maj7 or Dom7 using the relative minors or dodecaphonics (jack zucker - Dodecaphonics) and utilizing position studies where you play over a sequence of chord progressions such as Em7 A7 Dm7 G7 Cm7 F7 Bbm7 Eb7 using the "lick" like this one and other tools.

My suggestion is that rather than repeat your objections, ad nauseum - simply do something positive and create your own thread, demonstrating your own, unique philosophy. Life's too short to get all wound up over a posting on the internet. Be a positive force instead!

[Mick-7]

one of the exercises I have my students do is learn this 15 fret pattern in all keys, then i have them learn it in all positions.

I don't have enough frets on my guitar to transpose this scale pattern to all keys unless I change it.

and then I have them go through exercises where they play over chord changes using similar lines to this

Similar lines? 9-10 bars of 8th notes in length?

Just trying to understand your logic here, which is as clear as mud. If the point of the exercise is that one can create long phrases by playing passing tones between the diatonic notes of a scale (which is all that you do throughout the entire exercise), I don't need to see 8-10 bars of 8th notes to grasp that idea, 1 or 2 will do.

[sgcim]

one of the exercises I have my students do is learn this 15 fret pattern in all keys, then i have them learn it in all positions, and then I have them go through exercises where they play over chord changes using similar lines to this, superimposing them over min7, Maj7 or Dom7 using the relative minors or dodecaphonics (jack zucker - Dodecaphonics) and utilizing position studies where you play over a sequence of chord progressions such as Em7 A7 Dm7 G7 Cm7 F7 Bbm7 Eb7 using the "lick" like this one and other tools.

My suggestion is that rather than repeat your objections, ad nauseum - simply do something positive and create your own thread, demonstrating your own, unique philosophy. Life's too short to get all wound up over a posting on the internet. Be a positive force instead!

Hey jzucker, I did a search on Danny Gatton, and you said in a thread that you played with him. What was that like?

[jzucker]

Hey jzucker, I did a search on Danny Gatton, and you said in a thread that you played with him. What was that like?

it was fun, scary, humbling and humiliating in several ways.

First of all, his following were as rabid as a political rally. I was subbing for his keyboard player. Whenever I would solo, the crowd would boo and yell for danny to play. During the first break, he apologized and said that I was a great player and was embarrassed about how they were treating me and mentioned he could learn a lot from me. It floored me what a gentleman he was and how he didn't take his local stardom too seriously. After doing a bunch of gigs with the band, the keyboard player returned from an illness and that was the last time I played with him but he did become my repairman after that and even made and installed a charlie christian pickup in my guitar.

he was obviously a great player and it seemed it could do anything on the guitar and play any style, sometimes all within a single chorus of a tune! He was using his les paul at the time with some type of echo unit built into it...

[jzucker]

Hey jzucker, I did a search on Danny Gatton, and you said in a thread that you played with him. What was that like?

This is the gatton/CC Pickup that he installed...

[sgcim]

This is the gatton/CC Pickup that he installed...

Wow! After hearing some of the great stuff he did with Buddy Emmons on the "Redneck Jazz" videos on You Tube, I started reading his biography, "Unfinished Business", and it talks about how he used to do repairs for people, and some of his customers didn't even know that he played the guitar!
He used to treat guitars as if they were the cars that he would always remodel- take them apart and add things he was experimenting with to them.
They talk about the GattonCC Pickup a lot in the book, and he even used to make a CC pickup belt buckle that he and his friends used to wear.
Joe Barden used to use Danny's guitar to experiment with when he was developing his double-coil pickup, and would install up to 200 experimental pickups on Danny's guitar before coming up with his signature pickup.

Did you get to hear him play? Did he give you any tips on playing besides the incredible hybrid picking technique he used? What did you think of him as a jazz player? He made some instruction videos, and all he had to say about 'flat picking' (as he called it) was an interesting variation on the chromatic scale that everyone does. Thanks in advance!

[jzucker]

Did you get to hear him play? Did he give you any tips on playing besides the incredible hybrid picking technique he used? What did you think of him as a jazz player? He made some instruction videos, and all he had to say about 'flat picking' (as he called it) was an interesting variation on the chromatic scale that everyone does. Thanks in advance!

Yes, I used to hear him around DC in various jazz clubs. While he was well known for the country/chickin' pickin' thing, he seemed to prefer playing jazz standards. There used to be a jazz brunch somewhere in the DC metro area with a really good buffet on sundays that he did for a long time. My wife and I used to go as often as we could to hear him. As a jazz player he was sort of like Tal Farlow harmonically. Like Tal, very unschooled. Didn't know theory or anything. We used to exchange licks though I couldn't play most of his, and I showed him some diminished scale stuff which he loved along with whole tone things. His technique was limitless so he could play very pianistically. In a way, a bit like Pasquale Grasso. When I showed him anything, within minutes he could play it back better than me and in variations I couldn't possibly have played. And many of the things he could play were beyond my technique since he used the pick and 4 fingers. He could do stuff that was just impossible for me.

Years later, I showed him some gambale sweep picking at a bar he was playing and he didn't see the point of it because he could already do all that stuff with pick and fingers!

I remember he seemed unhappy at that point as he had gotten some notoriety for some of his more popular recordings, but I got the feeling that he just wanted to play jazz...