Applying a Flat 9, Flat 13 Lick to Three Standards

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In this lesson, I’ll show you how to tackle the most important (and often least practiced) part of learning new vocabulary – application. We’ll apply the lick over three tunes – Autumn Leaves, Oleo, and There is No Greater Love. I’ll also spend some time explaining what’s going on with this lick from a harmonic standpoint at the end of the lesson.

Takeaways:

• Sing it, sing it, sing it!
• Spend lots of time just playing the lick in one key, hammering out technical glitches. You want it to be lodged in your muscle memory.
• Practice the lick straight and swung and experiment with using different swing feels.
• Don’t worry about being musical with this practice, it’s about learning to fit in a piece of vocabulary so eventually it can sound natural.
• Work on bridging the gap between rote learning and improvising by keeping the lick in the back of your mind as you freely improvise.
• When you see a dominant chord, remember that you have tons of different options, not just the mixolydian scale.

Related Lessons:

• Understanding the Architecture of Vocabulary: The Honeysuckle Rose Lick
• Applying Vocabulary: Practicing the Honeysuckle Rose Lick over Joy Spring
• Applying the Harmonic Minor Scale to Dominant7b9 Chords
• The Way You Look Tonight: Applying Errol Garner’s Lick
• The Altered Dominant (7#9) Trick