WEBVTT 00:00:04.403 --> 00:00:09.085 Okay, we've covered an awful lot of ground in this little blues course. 00:00:09.085 --> 00:00:14.657 It's really important that you practice the right things to make the most of your practice time 00:00:14.657 --> 00:00:17.540 and to make sure that you really digest this information. 00:00:17.540 --> 00:00:19.387 So, what should you be doing? 00:00:19.387 --> 00:00:22.669 Well, the first thing that needs to go into your practice schedule 00:00:22.669 --> 00:00:24.339 is to learn the licks. 00:00:24.339 --> 00:00:28.433 Of course you need to learn the scale positions as well : they go around the licks 00:00:28.433 --> 00:00:32.501 but definitely knowing the licks for each position is really important. 00:00:32.501 --> 00:00:34.641 So it's worth practicing each one up. 00:00:34.641 --> 00:00:37.157 Really working on trying to make it sound good. 00:00:37.157 --> 00:00:39.066 Not just getting the notes right 00:00:39.066 --> 00:00:42.831 but thinking about how loud and soft you pick the notes. 00:00:42.831 --> 00:00:47.503 The whole dynamic feel of it, whether you really give it some aggression, 00:00:47.503 --> 00:00:49.678 or whether it's soft and delicate, that kind of thing. 00:00:49.678 --> 00:00:54.515 That makes a huge difference to the way people can project through their playing. 00:00:54.515 --> 00:00:57.536 So, learning your licks, getting the licks down right, 00:00:57.536 --> 00:01:00.261 is the first thing that you should be worried about. 00:01:00.261 --> 00:01:02.308 The next thing is making sure that you use them. 00:01:02.308 --> 00:01:05.995 Now what I recommend for all of my students is that you use a backing track. 00:01:05.995 --> 00:01:10.040 Now, if you're lucky enough to be in a band and you can practice using the licks with a band 00:01:10.040 --> 00:01:13.291 then that's the best thing ever but not everyone has that luxury, 00:01:13.291 --> 00:01:16.096 so a backing track is a pretty close second. 00:01:16.096 --> 00:01:20.046 Now, there's backing tracks available from my site, including a couple of free ones, 00:01:20.046 --> 00:01:22.468 so use those. There's plenty around on the Internet 00:01:22.468 --> 00:01:25.882 so just look about and find yourself some backing tracks to jam to. 00:01:25.882 --> 00:01:27.082 It's really important. 00:01:27.082 --> 00:01:32.531 The ones that you'll get from my site are 5 minute long, 00:01:32.531 --> 00:01:36.025 which is a good amount of time to practice one lick. 00:01:36.025 --> 00:01:41.110 Now I did talk about this in an earlier lesson, in Blues Lead Guitar, Volume One 00:01:41.110 --> 00:01:45.634 but just to reiterate it here, take one lick that I've given you 00:01:45.634 --> 00:01:47.837 and use it as many different times, 00:01:47.837 --> 00:01:51.117 as many different ways as you can for a whole five minutes. 00:01:51.117 --> 00:01:54.240 What you'll find is that after the first minute 00:01:54.240 --> 00:01:57.602 you've used everyway that you can possibly think of to play the lick. 00:01:57.602 --> 00:02:02.033 And that way you'll start really pushing your boundaries of the ways that you can use that lick. 00:02:02.033 --> 00:02:04.624 It's also worth, within that five minutes, 00:02:04.624 --> 00:02:08.171 maybe towards the last part of it, the last minute or so, 00:02:08.171 --> 00:02:11.029 linking up with some other licks that you already know from that position. 00:02:11.029 --> 00:02:15.213 So you can sit there and go from one lick and then smoothly into another lick 00:02:15.213 --> 00:02:18.818 and then back to the first lick or whatever. Letting them blend. 00:02:18.818 --> 00:02:20.485 Because what you don't want is to have: 00:02:20.485 --> 00:02:25.352 Here's the licks that you've learned on this DVD or from wherever else, 00:02:25.352 --> 00:02:28.466 and when you play, it's got nothing to do with that collection of licks. 00:02:28.466 --> 00:02:30.938 You have to try and blend them in to your playing 00:02:30.938 --> 00:02:33.693 so that they naturally just come out whenever you play your pentatonic. 00:02:33.693 --> 00:02:35.345 That's kind of the point. 00:02:35.345 --> 00:02:38.987 As well as doing that, you might want to add to your playing schedule, 00:02:38.987 --> 00:02:42.236 after you've done all of these individual licks in individual positions 00:02:42.236 --> 00:02:47.604 would be linking positions and practicing moving from one place to another place 00:02:47.604 --> 00:02:52.370 and using those slides to join them together or shifts or using the same note. 00:02:52.370 --> 00:02:56.589 A good idea is just to pick one specific thing and practice that. 00:02:56.589 --> 00:03:00.374 So, either practice moving from one position to another position that's right next door 00:03:00.374 --> 00:03:03.789 or, practice jumping from one end of the neck to the other end of the neck 00:03:03.789 --> 00:03:06.125 and back to the middle somewhere, really jumping around a lot. 00:03:06.125 --> 00:03:09.110 But really trying to find the thing, it is that you're going to practice 00:03:09.110 --> 00:03:11.990 and then work on that one thing over and over. 00:03:11.990 --> 00:03:17.204 Okay, now, the other really, really big question that people have is 00:03:17.204 --> 00:03:20.224 "You've taught me loads of stuff about playing in the key of A 00:03:20.224 --> 00:03:22.363 but I want to play in other keys too." 00:03:22.363 --> 00:03:26.140 Actually, you have to play in other keys and it's really, really important. 00:03:26.140 --> 00:03:29.894 But the reason that I taught you everything in the key of A is so that 00:03:29.894 --> 00:03:32.563 you really start to understand each position. 00:03:32.563 --> 00:03:36.460 Now, once you can play, for example, position one. 00:03:36.460 --> 00:03:38.927 You've learned your licks in position one in the key of A 00:03:38.927 --> 00:03:42.265 and you've done your homework and you've really got it sounding good. 00:03:42.265 --> 00:03:47.465 Now, if you want to move that to the key of C, all you need to do is move the root note. 00:03:47.465 --> 00:03:52.650 And this is why I keep going on all the time, through all my lessons, 00:03:52.650 --> 00:03:54.882 about the importance of knowing which note is the root note. 00:03:54.882 --> 00:04:02.150 Because all you have to do is to move that root note to the note of your new key 00:04:02.150 --> 00:04:03.932 and you've got your new scale. 00:04:03.932 --> 00:04:07.901 For example, position one in A was around the 5th fret. 00:04:07.901 --> 00:04:09.954 If you wanted to play in C, 00:04:09.954 --> 00:04:13.361 you simply move that whole bunch of stuff up to the 8th fret 00:04:13.361 --> 00:04:20.468 because the root note for the key of C is the note C, 8th fret, 6th string. 00:04:20.468 --> 00:04:22.730 And then you can play all of your position one licks. 00:04:22.730 --> 00:04:25.522 You'll find that a little bit weird at first 00:04:25.522 --> 00:04:28.328 because you've been playing so much in the key of A. 00:04:28.328 --> 00:04:31.551 So what you want to start again with is just playing position one. 00:04:31.551 --> 00:04:34.411 Get use to playing position one in your new key. 00:04:34.411 --> 00:04:38.764 When you feel confident with that, maybe try going from position one up into position two, 00:04:38.764 --> 00:04:41.175 back to position one, up to position two, back to position one, 00:04:41.175 --> 00:04:43.707 and start to see that they kind of link together. 00:04:43.707 --> 00:04:45.946 And because you've already done it in the key of A 00:04:45.946 --> 00:04:50.412 you will find it quite easy, I'm sure, to link through all your different positions 00:04:50.412 --> 00:04:53.679 if you've done your homework in the key of A well enough. 00:04:53.679 --> 00:04:55.423 Which I'm hoping you will have done. 00:04:55.423 --> 00:04:59.373 Other things we need to talk about quickly : new licks. 00:04:59.373 --> 00:05:05.079 I've given you a bunch of licks but Eric Clapton certainly didn't learn licks from a DVD 00:05:05.079 --> 00:05:08.429 by some weird Tasmanian guy who teaches via the Internet. 00:05:08.429 --> 00:05:11.196 You learn licks from records. 00:05:11.196 --> 00:05:15.899 The sooner you get transcribing and listening to your favorite BB King 00:05:15.899 --> 00:05:18.463 or Eric Clapton or whoever you like's album 00:05:18.463 --> 00:05:21.865 and trying to work out their licks. That's what you should be doing. 00:05:21.865 --> 00:05:26.198 That is the real way to learn to play blues guitar and there's no substitute for it. 00:05:26.198 --> 00:05:30.027 I've given you a really good course that I think will help you on your way 00:05:30.027 --> 00:05:32.912 but you need to transcribe things. 00:05:32.912 --> 00:05:34.910 There's no question, you must do that 00:05:34.910 --> 00:05:37.955 if you want to end up being even a competent guitar player, 00:05:37.955 --> 00:05:39.400 (it) has to be transcribing stuff. 00:05:39.400 --> 00:05:43.232 Now to help you with that, I have a product, which I'm not saying you have to buy 00:05:43.232 --> 00:05:48.467 you can be using your own CDs like Clapton CDs or whatever if you like but I've got this thing, 00:05:48.467 --> 00:05:52.745 this really useful blues solos pack where I recorded five different solos 00:05:52.745 --> 00:05:56.954 in the style of five different guitar players and they progressively get harder 00:05:56.954 --> 00:06:01.387 and they use a mixture of the different pentatonic scales and they're full of licks. 00:06:01.387 --> 00:06:05.570 I picked each guitar player's (twenty, whatever) favorite licks 00:06:05.570 --> 00:06:10.049 and then squashed them all into a new solo, made a backing track and recorded it. 00:06:10.049 --> 00:06:13.139 So I've made sure they're pretty straight-forward to transcribe 00:06:13.139 --> 00:06:16.215 and you get the tabs as well so after you've transcribed it, 00:06:16.215 --> 00:06:19.909 like worked it out by ear yourself, you can then check it against my transcription 00:06:19.909 --> 00:06:22.330 and make sure that everything's okay. 00:06:22.330 --> 00:06:27.193 So, that's a really, really important thing that you do next is work on your own licks. 00:06:27.193 --> 00:06:28.937 Mega, mega important. 00:06:28.937 --> 00:06:36.935 One last thing, there is another note that you will find crops up quite a lot in blues, 00:06:36.935 --> 00:06:39.609 In the key of A, this is the note C#. 00:06:39.609 --> 00:06:43.800 And the reason this note is there is because it comes from an A7 chord. 00:06:43.800 --> 00:06:50.170 but whenever you use that note particularly, it only fits over the A7 chord 00:06:50.170 --> 00:06:54.236 and in a blues, hopefully you remember that it's got the chords A, D and E. 00:06:54.236 --> 00:06:55.850 Or A7, D7 and E7. 00:06:55.850 --> 00:07:00.667 Any licks that use the note C# only sound good over the A chord. 00:07:00.667 --> 00:07:03.443 So the reason they're not covered here 00:07:03.443 --> 00:07:07.333 is because these things, they're called chord specific licks, 00:07:07.333 --> 00:07:11.561 and they're going to get covered in Advanced Blues Lead Guitar 00:07:11.561 --> 00:07:13.823 which will be coming to you very soon. 00:07:13.823 --> 00:07:17.608 So, don't stress about that. If you want a quick snippet of what I'm talking about 00:07:17.608 --> 00:07:22.603 you might like to check out a series of videos on my web site called 'Jazz up your blues' 00:07:22.603 --> 00:07:26.960 which talks about this concept a bit and gives you an introduction to the use of arpeggios 00:07:26.960 --> 00:07:31.597 which is a very cool thing to do. 00:07:31.597 --> 00:07:35.251 Well I hope you've enjoyed this series of blues lead guitar lessons. 00:07:35.251 --> 00:07:39.375 Be it on the DVD or if you've watched it on Youtube or through the web site. 00:07:39.375 --> 00:07:42.305 I really hope that it helps expand your blues playing 00:07:42.305 --> 00:07:47.263 and takes you to new, and cool, and hip places that you never thought you'd go to before. 00:07:47.263 --> 00:07:50.339 I've seen many of my private students really progress 00:07:50.339 --> 00:07:53.978 from being complete beginners in the lead guitar department 00:07:53.978 --> 00:07:56.094 to really doing some pretty good quality solos. 00:07:56.094 --> 00:07:57.789 It's all about the licks. 00:07:57.789 --> 00:08:02.244 Okay, take care of yourselves, and I will see you again for another lesson real soon. 00:08:02.244 --> 00:08:04.058 Bye bye.