Mike's Music Musings

 While Coltrane's "Giant Steps" cycle using major thirds, it is also possible to cycle using minor thirds. Here are some licks using that concept that can be used in a turnaround, a static chord, or any set of diatonic chords within a major scale.

Here's one of my favorite bop ideas taken through several scales. You can play this pattern in two places within the major scale, and can connect them via a chromatic passing note or a whole step slide. You can also take the pattern and apply it to other sequences (i.e., a set of three notes separated by whole steps, or separated by a whole and a half step, instead of a half and a whole step)

 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.