Lick Of The Month #11

Almost a full year of licks! LOTM#11 is another ii V I walking bass line, this time taken from 'Bag's Groove' taken from the Miles Davis album of the same name. The bassist on the record is Percy Heath, if you like what you hear check out the other posts I've written on him here!

Lick Of The Month #10

Here we are again for LOTM#10 and we've got another gem from Miles Davis. This one is taken from my transcription of 'Blues By Five' and is played over a ii V I progression.

Lick Of The Month #9

February's LOTM is a super versatile walking bass ii V I. I've taken it from the 'Solar' bass transcription I posted last week. It's really simple which makes it easy to apply to a lot of tunes.

Solar Bass Transcription

'Solar' from the album "Walkin'" by Miles Davis, is a full on ii V work out! This transcription looks at how Percy Heath approaches the first four choruses. The tune is 12 bars long and can be split into 4 ii V's of all shapes and sizes.

Lick Of The Month #4

September's Lick Of The Month is one of Cannonball Adderley's from Freddie Freeloader. I chose this lick as I love the way he approaches the change from the last Ab7 of the tune back to the first Bb7. Here's the lick, skip to 7:25 to hear it.

Lick of the month #2

Our second LOTM is another ii V i from Autumn Leaves, but this time it's a minor ii V from the bassist, Sam Jones.

This is a great lick with some simple but effective tricks in it. Here it is in the original key and then in two more keys, moving through the cycle. This lick should be practised in all keys even though I've only wrote it out in the first three!

The opening bar plays root, natural 9, 3, root. The natural 9 is used as a tension note between the root and the third as it is out of the key but still fits quite nicely. The second bar starts on a chromatic run down to the root, practise this as it is a great way to get out of the habit of jumping straight onto the root for beat 1! The last beat in this bar is a chromatic note leading to the root of the i chord. This lick is finished off with a simple R 3 5 3 arpeggio which helps to reinforce the harmony of the chord sequence after a bar of almost all chromatic notes.

As you can see from the example above, you may have to tweak these licks to take them through all 12 keys but the ideas are still the same - the A-7 arpeggio in the final example is ascending rather than descending.

Lick of the month #1

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.

So What

If you've ever struggled to play over a modal chord progression then learning this Miles Davis solo is a must!

Davis tends to stick to the Dorian mode for the majority of his solo, as you would expect, although he occasionally uses a C major triad instead. (bars 35 - 40) One interesting use of this is in bar 57 where he uses the C major triad on the end of an Eb-7 section, essentially bringing in the D-7 a bar early. 

In bars 41-44 Davis plays a few licks taken from the Blues Scale, I especially like his quick use of the flat 5 coming back down to the root.

At the end of a 3 bar long Eb Dorian run, Davis uses some chromatic notes (bar 25) leading back into the D-7. Although these notes are not in Eb-7, they are all notes from the D-7.

G = 4th of D-

A = 5th of D-

D = Root of D-

Another tool Davis uses is the repetition of a simple melodic idea, starting on bar 3, he develops a short melody from the Dorian mode. This melody makes an appearance again at bars 46 - 47 as well as closing the solo at bar 65. This helps to give his solo a sense of continuity and structure.

Click the here for the full transcription, this solo is packed with licks that can be adapted for use in your own improvisations, another favourite is the Eb Dorian run in thirds, bars 53 - 56! There's just too many to list here, so grab the transcription and dig in!