5 Easy Blues Licks Every Jazz Musician Should Know

[@demejiuk5660]

The lyrics are low key the killer factor here. They help you remember how to sing the licks and thus how to link them. Genius lesson.

[@andreapiacentini9108]

I can't even express how grateful I am for this video. These licks are helping me out so much, and the funny part is that they're helping me more with my voice and my thinking process than with my actual guitar playing. These licks are perfect for knowing where you are in the scales based on the sound you get, and when you get it loud and clear in your mind and you can recognize it, I mean come on, there's no skill better than this in music. Thank you, thank you, thank you Jeff!!!

[@LeviClay]

awww man, this would have been the perfect chance to collab! You with one of you killer key driven backing tracks and me slotting your licks over the top!

[@DavidRelihanMusic]

I did not know you played guitar. I normally follow your lessons to transcribe your piano/neo soul lessons on guitar 😊

[@pepecetina]

Awesome mnemotechnics, these lyrics. It might be just me, but one tricky part of integrating licks into your vocabulary is remembering the licks (I know. Practicing in all scales helps to memorize, but still).

[@harveyhensley875]

Veerry niiiice. Writing lyrics for your licks is a great takeaway from this. These look great for the I chord, a useful exercise will be to adapt them, or make connections to the IV and V chords.

[@PowerChordJack]

This video was sick AF

[@paulrhodesquinn]

I was singing along and heard my neighbour joining in! Sick as F🤫k

[@jonathanvandenberg3571]

Nice!

[@maurj5048]

Hey Jeff, could you make an analysis on Kanye’s harmonies? Or like hip hop/soul chords? Something like that, I think it could be both viral af and super educational coming from you

[@splitprune]

you really think doing kanye rn would be viral lmao

[@joshcharlat850]

Pretty fun.

[@johnnywesleysaxophone]

How can you be so good at playing saxophone, piano and everything else? Which instrument did you learn first?

[@timbray4788]

And sing along at home! 😂😂😂

[@sergiobravo252]

Can you arrange them in 12 bars C jam ?

[@sergiobravo252]

What chords would better fit those liks?

[@jimshunamon2512]

Trust me, with a voice like mine you don't want me to sing along 😮

[@animeprincess98]

hahaha, the tone is way off for my taste, but great licks!

[@75jdavid]

more swearing please! :)

[@thomascordery7951]

These are the dominant blues scales, especially in modern blues, as informed by academia. They're a great place to start, but they're not the only "blues scales", even assuming that "scale" is a correct term for these note collections. I mean, blues musicians don't build chords from these scales the way chords are built from western music scales. The old delta blues players certainly used these note collections; they didn't wear them like a straight jacket. Academia has been too restrictive in teaching "correct" blues form, in my view. Robert Johnson didn't even stick rigidly to twelve bars, even skipping or adding a bar as it suited him. Nor did he adhere manically to 4/4 time, sometimes adding or deleting a note. For him and others of the earliest blues musicians, rhythm and note choice were about the feeling of the moment and developing the story. It's wonderful to learn modern blues language, but don't be shy to expand your blues melody line possibilities outside of those limits. Check out the nonatonic blues scale (yes, another academically-derived concept, but it's an expansion of possibilities). Then transcribe some works of the earliest blues masters, especially where they differ from our modern "correct" practice. At least recognize that the major and minor blues scales are nowhere near the only ways to write blues melody lines. Thank you for doing this. Keepin' the blues alive!