Using a Lick Library to Hone Your Guitaring Skills

Especially in the rock music genres, the word "lick" is used to refer to a pattern or phrase that consists usually of either a series of musical notes or a short phrase and is often played in melodic lines or in solos. More often than not the term is used in reference to the guitar playing rock musicians. Some musicians recommend that one of the best ways to learn the guitar would be to practice licks, collect a variety of them in a lick library and learn how and when to utilize them so that you will be able to create good solos.

A lot of time is devoted to the practicing of scales when a person is first learning to play the guitar. There is not much benefit to that approach. There is a better way to utilize the practice time.

Scale practicing is not all lost. When you scale practice you are able to build up the strength and agility in your fingers. You will be training your ear for the patterns of the scale. You are learning the fret board notes. But if you think about it, scales itself is not music. Even the notes you play in a chord or in a solo did originated from a scale; you are playing them differently.

In music such as the rock, the blues and jazz, notes not in the scale are quite often used. Another point is that your scales practice does not help you when it comes to playing chords, solos and licks which are the building blocks of most guitar songs.

Here are a few suggestions for what you can do instead. When you are accompanying songs on the guitar, chords are mainly what you will be playing. So you should practice your chords. If you want to play them you will have to begin practicing them.

Continuing to practice scales do not help you do that. Another thing you can do is to practice playing licks. Practicing lick you have accumulated in your lick library will give you all the benefits that scale practice provides. Also, it allows you to directly utilize you skills in your songs.

It is a good idea to collect a large number of licks in a lick library and you will become skilled at knowing exactly when to utilize them when you begin to create your own solos. Another thing you can do is to practice intervals. This will bring it all together, because you will be able to play anything when you hear, and then play the intervals with the guitar.

Train yourself to think intervals instead of in scales and it will allow you to make creative solos and licks. Keep practicing licks and intervals, but also be certain to practice whole solos also. If you can learn a complete solo, that would provide you with a good finger workout. It teaches you the construction of solos.

This is a more productive process that continuing to practice scales. So these are the alternative methods you can use when learning to play the guitar. You will still get all the benefits that the scales practice gave you.

A good way to be able to improvise a song on your guitar is to build a foundation of both riffs and licks. It is said that successful players had all created a well memorized riffs library and also a lick library. While practicing, they would totally absorb their licks from many sources, so they will be prepared if the opportunity arose for them to perform a solo or give an improvisation. That process of learning through the lick library makes improvisation very easy because you will be able to blend you tunes.

There are several strategies you could use when approaching learning to play guitar. Utilizing a lick library is only one of them, but it has been proven to be effective. Learn more about using a lick collection to hone your skills as a guitar player.

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