Rob Schumann: This lick is based off of a minor scale; in this case we are in D minor. And it's got a couple of cool things going on, that you can now incorporate in your own playing. It uses a pedal type of approach, that we will look at in just a second. And also it uses rhythmic displacement and a few chromatic notes. Basically the function of this lick, is to provide some contrast to the rest of your solo. Most people's solos revolve around a minor pentatonic shape. In this case, so instead of D minor, we could find that here at the tenth fret.
And then of course, you can lay a minor pentatonic scale over that. And so most people have rather pentatonic kind of solo going on in the background. And so this lick can kind of break that up and provide sort of a contrasting element to your solo, that will capture people's attention after sort of getting lost in that usual minor pentatonic, kind of solo sound, mixed in with the minor scale.
So let's look at the approach that's happening here. Basically on the first string, we are walking down, part of the minor scale. So if I was to start on the different, right here, in the tenth fret of the first string, and walk up the D minor scale. I would have D, E, F, G, and then A. So I am starting on the note of fifth above, what chord I am on. So I am on A, which is the chord turn of different. And then basically below that, I am putting sort of an upside-down power code. I have got a D note and an A note. And those are both notes on a D minor. It's the one and the five. In this case the fifth is on the bottom.
So I am playing that top note on the scale of the A, and then putting that upside empower chord underneath it. Then going to the fifteenth fret. This is a G, so I am just walking down the scale and then I put those same two notes on it. A D and the A underneath on the fifteenth and fourteenth fret. Here it's important to use finger-pivoting, so you don't get this ringing together. Because that will sort of muddy up the melody that's going on. So I tip that finger up.
So I have still got these same two notes underneath and so I am going to fifteenth next and then use the first finger on thirteenth, so we are continuing to walk down the scale with the same two notes on the bottom. I would probably use the third finger here on the fifteenth fret. And notice that, these are the patterns of threes. One, two, three; one, two, three; one, two, three. But the rhythm figures in sixteenth note. So that's where we have rhythmic displacement which is where the accent of what you are playing doesn't really match the beat sub-division that can make for a very interesting sound.
So it almost sounds as if it's in triplets but it's really grouped as in 16th notes. So we have got very angular melody, which will really contrast with the normal solo field. Then we are going to hit E on the twelfth fret of the first string and here we will change it up just a little bit. We will go to the thirteenth fret of the second string C instead of the 15th fret. So we are just going to 12, 13, 14. So that whole figure looks like this.
Then we are going to do a little chromatic walk up, 12, 13, 14, 15. And then you have to really shift your hand quickly to the seventeenth fret of the third string. We are going to bend up a whole step. So slowly that lick is going to look like this. And we are bending the seventeenth fret up a whole step, so that's going from a C up to a D. So we are bending up to the root of the chord. And so the function of this lick is really, number one, to provide contrast but also you can use it as a bridge to some upper positions.
And so you could be soloing down here in the normal tenth position, slide up, as I did when I played the lick the first time, and just grab it out of nowhere. And from this D that we are bending up to, we could do a lot of different things. We could go into another position of the minor scale. Or you can even go for more of a bluesy lick. Here we are bending up to one, so we get hit one in the flat third right here on the eighteenth fret. And going to some other licks from that.
So let's play the lick at half speed and then we will look at some tips for putting it in other keys to apply it to the music you maybe playing. Now you will notice as I am going through these arpeggiates a lot of times I am trying to only have one finger down at a time. When you are using overdrive, like I have got dialed in here. I really don't want these to ring together too much, if you can help it. As soon as I do that, I try to get it just one finger down at the time to lessen that. One more time at half speed. And you can try using alternate picking on this.
Sometimes, I am just going down, up-down, and then switching back up to a down when I get to the first string, so it would be like down-up-down, down-up-down, down-up-down. That helps with my accent. So I am kind of breaking my rule about alternate picking. But sometimes you just have to do, it's best for the music and I forget technique once in a while. So that's over a D minor chord. And so you can hear that in our little back and track, that we are playing over there.
So if it's over a D minor or D minor seven, of course, it's out of the minor scale. If we are going to do this in a different key, let's say we are playing over A minor. We wanted to play an A minor, this is an A minor seven chord. In that case, we had talked about, how this starts on the fifth of the chord. So in an A minor the fifth of the chord is an E.
So just take your fourth finger and we have got an E right here on the twelfth fret of the first string. And you can do the same fingerings to play it over A minor seven. So we would have --. So we are just trying on the twelfth, we went 12, 10, 9. Same fingerings as before fourth finger, second finger, first finger. And then finger-pivot here. And then 7, 8, 9, 10. And then sliding up quickly. That's actually really good practice for soloing to be able to just jump to a fret and then to merely an ambient tune. And a lot times, I will either go into another lick from that or just fall off from that to make it sound right. So that's in the key of A minor, and then if we were in the key of E minor which is also a very common thing to soloing, to follow over this. E minor seven. Once again, we have looked for the fifth of the chord.
The fifth of an E minor is a B. So I can find that here on the seventh fret, of the first string. And once again, go through the same fingerings. So I have got seven, five, four. And lots so I am having to use through the top of my right hand to mute these strings so they don't keep ringing. If I am not care for, you can hear that low sound that ring out as the strings kind of sympathetically vibrate. So we have got seven, five, four and then the finger-pivot on five. And then three, five, four. And then two, three, four and then two, three, four, five, seven. So we have got --. So that gets us through the minor application. So the style that this lick really lends itself to, is a fusion style or a funk style. Fusion is, sort of like jazz with a rock attitude and this sort of has that kind of style rhythmic. Displacement is sort of typical for that.
And we have looked at it in terms of a minor seven which is a chord you can have many a times in a static progression. A static chord is the one that just sits there. It doesn't really go to other chords or maybe there is just two chords in a progression. So we have played it over minor seven but another application you can have is a very dominant seventh chord, which is very common. You can either have a seven or a nine.
And actually you can get away with this lick in that situation also. The flat third of the minor scale basically sounds like the flat third of the blues scale, with this lick. So let's try it over a dominant chord and see how it sounds? So you can see that that works just fine. One thing that you could try, is taking that flat third and resolving it to the major third. But you really don't need to. So that's really up to you. But a lot of times because of the similarities between the minor scale and the blues scale, you can get away
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