Welcome

Welcome to the blog! This is where all the magic happens. OK, maybe I'm setting myself up as a little overly important, but this is where the majority of updates will come from.

I wanted this to be a place to share ideas for licks and such, so I figured I'd start right away with the first post.

Both of these licks are based on the basic ii-V-I progression and for space and time sake, I only included the lick in the key of C. The first lick I devised from setting the 3rd of the chords as the goal note on beat one and then worked my way around toward the next goal note.

The second uses the descending arpeggio for the majority of the lick but I threw in a tri-tone substitution over the V chord.

I got the idea from an article in Jazz Improv Magazine V7N2. Greg Fishman wrote about hearing chord tones in contours, specifically 3rds. He provided a number of examples and it gave me the inspiration to devise some of my own. Thanks for a great article!

My next step with these licks is to be able to play them with the starting note being other chord tones as well as finding alternate rhythms. I tried to be as original as possible, so what do you think?