Mike's Music Musings

 These are lines which use ascending chromaticism to build excitement to a line.

 Here are a set of licks which feature the #4, or the blue note. In these licks, the note is used as a passing note. Play fast and with rhythmic displacement for added interest.

 Below are variations on one Andy Timmons lick that I learned. The licks sound as good or better displaced by one or three sixteenth notes. Slides and hammer ons/pull offs are notated. I tried to vary the licks by changing directions (up and down), including side stepping, adding/removing notes, etc. 

Here are a few patterns you can use to move up and down the neck very quickly. Because you use pull offs, you are not limited by the speed and/or accuracy of your alternate picking. The tab notes where slides and pull offs are used. Where a slide and pull off are used in succession, it usually works to switch them, however for ease of playing, this notation uses a pull off for half steps and a slide for whole steps. The first example was taken mostly from a Steve Vai lick, and I applied the concept to other areas of the fretboard.

This is a lydian dominant lick which alternates between a d major triad and an augmented triad containing the 7, 9, and #11. The second lick runs through the entire scale, alternating between major triad and the augmented triad. Note that the augmented triad retains its shape throughout each three iterations (because each note is a major third apart). Running through this sequence outlines a hexatonic scale (derived from six notes) containing the scale degrees 1, 2, 3, #4, 5, and b7. The sequence of triads gives a feeling of 3 over 4, alternating the beginning of the sequence between syncopated to non-syncopated.

An instructor once told me that a great skill to develop is the ability to translate one lick to multiple scales and chord qualities. Music is made up of patterns and thematic development of a motif, which is usually expressed over changing chords. Accomplishing this involves understanding how scales are constructed, and which of the scale degrees are stable versus unstable . This is just another way of saying which tones carry tension and which tones carry the absence or resolution of tension. Chord tones are stable, and the non-chord tones are more unstable- especially if within a half step of a chord tone. For example, the b9 really wants to resolve to the 1, and the 4 is begging to resolve to the 3.  Non-chord tones with a whole step relationship, for example, the 9 or 6 in a major scale, are more stable and depending on the context can act as stable or unstable tones. Notes that are neither chord tones nor non-chord tones (i.e., outside of the scale) can be also expressed as ...