Welcome to the first ever 'Lick of the month'! I'm going to be adding a new lick to my blog every month (as the name suggests...) starting today! This months lick is a ii V I in Bb major. It was played by Miles Davis on 'Autumn Leaves ' from the brilliant album 'Somethin' Else'.
From a functional point of view I like to know where any licks I'm playing start in relation to the root of the first chord, in this case C minor. The starting note is an F which is the 4th of C minor, or the fret below C! Having this reference point helps me to get the lick out when I need it!
The opening bar Davis is playing up the C Dorian scale ending on an F which could be seen as an 11th but I feel that the way the notes are phrased he is bringing the F7 in a beat early, the same way he did in his solo on
So What. He rounds this off by landing on the root of the I chord.
Another nice feature of this lick is the placement of chord tones. In the first bar leaving an 8th beat rest shifts the Eb (3rd) and G (5th) onto beats 2 and 4, which I think gives it a syncopated feel compared to the straight second bar.
On the video I play the lick at 110 bpm, which is pretty much the original speed. A slowed down version at 80bpm and a faster one at 160bpm. It's always good practice to play any new licks at different tempos as well as taking them through all 12 keys.
