Memorizing Solos

MarkO

Bb Demented
Hi all

So a question about how things work out as we progress in our playing.

I have been learning some solos from various BGU courses and the advice from Griff as always, is spot on. Learning to sing the melody of the solo is key to playing it.
I can now ‘sing’ 5 or 6 BGU solos and I can play them OK too. All goo.

Question is. Is this the way it always is? For example. Does Griff keep dozens of solo melodies in his head so he can play them at will? Or is there a level beyond this where he just plays solos out of thin air at will?

Not sure how many solos I can remember how to sing as time goes by :)

Curious to hear your experience of this.
Cheers
Mark
 

OG_Blues

Guitar Geezer
Mark, I think your question is possibly more accurately along the lines of how to improvise solos.
If you are comfortable with the solos in BGU, you should be ready to look at some of Griff's other courses aimed at solo improvisation, like "How To Improvise Blues Solos" and/or the "Blues Solo Construction Kit".
Some people find learning to improvise solos quite easy, but most of us mere mortals can reach proficiency at walking on water in less time than learning to improvise solos skillfully.
It's basically a matter of re-combining or stringing together individual licks you know into a coherent solo. (Gross oversimplification).
BTW, Griff's course on arpeggios is also a great one to help you get going in this direction.
 

OG_Blues

Guitar Geezer
Yes - "Chord by Chord Blues Soloing" is the correct full name of the course.
IMO, anyone aspiring to improvise solos should start with this course and build off of it, but everyone learns differently and finds their way via different paths that resonate with them personally.
 

MarkO

Bb Demented
Hey
Thanks for the insight. I guess I trying to understand the learning process that has worked for people. Like the way ‘singing’ a solo helps me learn it when I thought I could never achieve that. How did you get from pre-canned solos to free improvising in a coherent way?
I realise we are all different but I find how the learning process works really interesting.
Cheers
Mark
 

Rancid Rumpboogie

Blues Mangler
Some people find learning to improvise solos quite easy, but most of us mere mortals can reach proficiency at walking on water in less time than learning to improvise solos skillfully.
Unless you have a good vocabulary of familiar licks firmly in your memory, you will never "walk on the water" and best you will ever do is dog paddle. :whistle:

Try Griff's "Playing On The Porch" approach. Learn to comp a blues rhythm through whole progressions with different feels using little chords. Get that down very well. Next, start throwing your familiar licks in with that in place of a chord over a bar or two at different places in the progression. Some will work, others won't depending on the lick and where in the progression you're trying to play it. But EVERY lick you know WILL work SOMEWHERE in the progression. This will not only greatly help your sense of timing, it will also show you which of your licks work well at different places in the progression. This will eventually "comparmentalize" your memory of your licks into categories of "Over the 1 chord", Over the IV chord, Over the V chord, and Turn-arounds. Then you will find that ANY lick from one of those categories is interchangeable with any other lick from that same category. Spend about an hour every day doing this and in a few months you will be "walking on the water".
 

Mr.Scary

A Blues Legend in My Own Mind
Unless you have a good vocabulary of familiar licks firmly in your memory, you will never "walk on the water" and best you will ever do is dog paddle. :whistle:

Try Griff's "Playing On The Porch" approach. Learn to comp a blues rhythm through whole progressions with different feels using little chords. Get that down very well. Next, start throwing your familiar licks in with that in place of a chord over a bar or two at different places in the progression. Some will work, others won't depending on the lick and where in the progression you're trying to play it. But EVERY lick you know WILL work SOMEWHERE in the progression. This will not only greatly help your sense of timing, it will also show you which of your licks work well at different places in the progression. This will eventually "comparmentalize" your memory of your licks into categories of "Over the 1 chord", Over the IV chord, Over the V chord, and Turn-arounds. Then you will find that ANY lick from one of those categories is interchangeable with any other lick from that same category. Spend about an hour every day doing this and in a few months you will be "walking on the water".
Is the full version more helpful then in BGU course
 

Rancid Rumpboogie

Blues Mangler
Is the full version more helpful then in BGU course
Full version of what? I don't think there is an actual course for "Playing On The Porch" (I may be wrong), I think it is just a concept that he put out in an email video. Others please chime in if I am wrong.

But you can't very well play on the porch unless you know the blues progressions / feels, know a fair number of appropriate chords, and have at least a few good licks to draw from ... wherever you get all that from.
 

MarkO

Bb Demented
This will eventually "comparmentalize" your memory of your licks into categories of "Over the 1 chord", Over the IV chord, Over the V chord, and Turn-arounds.

Hey RR!

Thats a real interesting concept. It may well be the answer. I have a bunch of licks in my pocket but calling them up at the right time in the heat of the moment is the challenge. It usually disappears into the mist and I end up noodling the pentatonic scale like a demented cat walking across a piano keyboard!
Maybe having 'go to' licks for each chord in the form will break it down enough so I can actually recall some of this stuff I have spent so many hours learning.
I know the is kinda what the BGU Construction Kit does, and I have used that to some good effect, but looking at it more from the point of view of being tied directly to the chords rather than sections of the form (which is more what the Cons Kit does, albeit with strong reference to the changes), that may make it sink in better. Probably just semantics but if it works....
I am going to give it a try.
Many thanks
Mark
 

Rancid Rumpboogie

Blues Mangler
Hey RR!

Thats a real interesting concept. It may well be the answer. I have a bunch of licks in my pocket but calling them up at the right time in the heat of the moment is the challenge. It usually disappears into the mist and I end up noodling the pentatonic scale like a demented cat walking across a piano keyboard!
Maybe having 'go to' licks for each chord in the form will break it down enough so I can actually recall some of this stuff I have spent so many hours learning.
I know the is kinda what the BGU Construction Kit does, and I have used that to some good effect, but looking at it more from the point of view of being tied directly to the chords rather than sections of the form (which is more what the Cons Kit does, albeit with strong reference to the changes), that may make it sink in better. Probably just semantics but if it works....
I am going to give it a try.
Many thanks
Mark
Mark, I have been doing as I described for about 5 years, about an hour every day. Maybe in several 15 or 20 minute passes, but roughly an hour a day. I have a couple hundred licks. If I didn't do that I would have maybe 10 because I would have forgotten all the others. It is just how I found to integrate all my licks into memory. It takes me a little over a week of that every day to use every lick I know. But it means I play every lick I know at least once a week and they stay fresh in memory that way. It also works to learn how to use the same lick in a slow blues, shuffle, jump blues, whatever ... and it keeps the little chords fresh in memory as well. If I didn't do that, personally I couldn't improvise fer crap. And for me, it is fun ... it is my "fun time" in my practice regimen, where I can play anything I darned well please. And often when I mess something up I end up discovering a brand new lick or combination. I think the important thing is keeping your timing solid, never breaking that rhythm no matter how bad you screw a lick up. That in itself teaches you another seldom-mentioned skill ... CYA ... how to cover your *ss when you screw up ... the wrong note you accidentally hit can most times trigger flowing into another lick you hadn't planned on playing. I say "planned", but that "planning" only extends to about one bar ahead of where you are currently at. You learn to hear the lick you are about to play in your head before you play it. I know it sounds crazy, but once you really know all your licks, your mind works at light speed and can be really creative ... the essence of "improvising".
 

MarkO

Bb Demented
It is just how I found to integrate all my licks into memory. It takes me a little over a week of that every day to use every lick I know. But it means I play every lick I know at least once a week and they stay fresh in memory that way.

Hey RR
OK, that's it, it's going in my practice planner! Sounds like it may be the missing pice of the puzzle that might get me from pre-canned solos to 'improvising' (like Griff said, it isn't REALLY improvising, just re-using what we know) and more freedom.

Thanks for the insight. How long was it with the routine before you 'broke free'? I know we are all different but just for laughs, how long was it?

Thanks
Mark
 

Rancid Rumpboogie

Blues Mangler
Hey RR
OK, that's it, it's going in my practice planner! Sounds like it may be the missing pice of the puzzle that might get me from pre-canned solos to 'improvising' (like Griff said, it isn't REALLY improvising, just re-using what we know) and more freedom.

Thanks for the insight. How long was it with the routine before you 'broke free'? I know we are all different but just for laughs, how long was it?

Thanks
Mark
Mark, for me it was really quick ... like maybe a month. But keep in mind that I played professionally on the road for 10 years many years ago, all outlaw country and classic rock. All I really had to learn was a collection of blues licks, the blues progressions are all dirt simple, and timing was something I already had ingrained in me before ever coming here. I already knew you could play the same thing straight and slow or speed it up and rock the crap out of it. I did have to learn more little chords and am still working on that ... there seems to be no end to the little critters and their variations.

Here is an idea of where I was at before even coming here. I wrote this and recorded it back in the late 80's. It is 100% just me, my old Les Paul and a 3/4 sized bass direct into an old Fostex simul-sync cassette recorder.

It hurts to think I'm stupid.
 

Grateful_Ed

Student Of The Blues
I liked that a lot Jim. Wish my worn out ears could make out the vocals better.
I'm havin' trouble wording this question so please bear with me.
When you practice all those licks, do you practice them up and down the neck/boxes, or just practice them where you learned them and transpose on the fly when you're playing in different keys?
 

Rancid Rumpboogie

Blues Mangler
I liked that a lot Jim. Wish my worn out ears could make out the vocals better.
I'm havin' trouble wording this question so please bear with me.
When you practice all those licks, do you practice them up and down the neck/boxes, or just practice them where you learned them and transpose on the fly when you're playing in different keys?
Well, I am not everybody, so my way isn't the only way. I am extremely pattern oriented, I remember my licks by their fingering patterns in a given box. Hence I NEVER transpose a lick because to me if the fingering changes, the pattern changes and IT IS A DIFFERENT LICK. Some will argue till the sky falls that it is still the same lick, but not to me it isn't, and that's that. Therefore my licks are the same no matter what key they are played in. All I ever have to do is know what box they are in. If in the key of A and it's a Box 1 lick I play it at the 5th fret Box 1 pentatonic position, if in the key of G play it at the 3rd fret Box 1 pentatonic position.

Different people perceive things differently. To my mind, if you're going to get into transposing licks on the fly while improvising, you better have a mind like a Cray computer and fingers that don't rely on muscle memory. I have neither.
 

BoogieMan

Blues Junior
"Playing On The Porch" was one of the "small" courses that Griff dropped from the catalog when he "upgraded" the site.

He also often uses that phrase when talking about playing in that style in general.
There are also three "Playing on the Porch" chapters in the Blues Guitar Unleashed course. As Jim said, this is a good way to practice your licks.
 

Rancid Rumpboogie

Blues Mangler
There are also three "Playing on the Porch" chapters in the Blues Guitar Unleashed course. As Jim said, this is a good way to practice your licks.
BoogieMan is right. Here is the manual, those two chapters are the last in the table of contents.
BGU.2 manual
There are also two corresponding videos in the course. They are lessons 30 and 31. Both are relatively simple, but you can expound on the concept no end.
As Griff says at the start of the first of the two videos, "In order to play this way you absolutely MUST take ownership of the beat" because there is no drummer, no bass, no metronome, nothing ... just you. So you must gain a very good feel for the blues progressions and different feels. That will greatly help you in any jam because you will never be wondering what chord is coming up or where you are in the progression, you will just know. And I happen to think that is essential if you are going to play the blues.
 
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