The “Lick Book” is something I had heard about many times from a lot of different people. Every time a teacher or fellow musician would mention it to me, they would always sing its praises, and yet I always avoided doing it for one reason or another.
Well let me tell you now…that was stupid! The lick book is the quintessential tool for developing your own voice as a performing musician, no matter what genre you perform in. So start yours right now. I mean it.
So what exactly is a lick book? Basically it is a notebook, or in my case a computer notation file, that you periodically write down musical phrases that you come up with. How often are you practicing (or fooling around on your instrument) and you play something that you think is really hip? The lick book is one place that you can keep track of all these cool licks so that you can reference them later.
What benefits will you be getting from starting a lick book?
1. You will never forget a cool lick again. The next time the creativity is flowing all you have to do is whip out your book, write it down, and it will always be there for you.
2. You will develop your own voice. As you write down more and more licks, you will find what kinds of phrases you do and don’t like.
3. Work on your technique using your own material. Lick books are a great way to work on being able to play what you want to be able to play. So many technical exercises out there have so little to do with music. Now you can have a whole book of musical technical exercises that YOU WROTE!
4. Build your own vocabulary as an improviser. The lick book is not exclusively an improvisers tool, but it is probably one of their most important. Improv is all about building up a usable vocabulary, and the lick book is THE way to do it.
You can use the lick book in two different ways. You can only write down licks when inspiration strikes, just so that you don’t forget it. Or you can force yourself to sit down and come up with a lick periodically, working it out until you come up with something you feel is worthy to put down in the almighty lick book.
I personally use and recommend the lick book to be used in a combination of both of the above ways for maximum creative growth. Give yourself a goal of how often you want to write a lick down in your lick book. Maybe 2-3 times a week or even daily. Then force yourself to come up with a lick at least that often. You won’t come up with the greatest licks all the time, but it is the fact that you are committing to it that is important. Of course, in addition to this committed time, you should also write down the licks that you happen across as well.
In order to give everyone the idea of what a lick book is, I will be coming up with a lick everyday for the next month (until May 18) and posting it on this blog for everyone to try out. Most of the licks that I come up with are based on progressions from Jazz standards, so that is most likely what I will be posting. However I encourage everyone, not just the jazzers to take a look at them. At the very least they can serve as good technical exercises.
Does anyone else already use a lick book? Are there any other ways that you use them? Are there any benefits that you see that I’m missing?
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