Our last lick of 2012 is here, and it's a whopper!! It's a 3 bar long triplet assault played by Joe Henderson on Horace Silver's 'Song For My Father'.
The lick can be heard on this version of the song at about 4:20 over 3 bars of F-7.
This lick is played almost exclusively using the blues scale, the first bar starts with almost a full two octave run up this scale from the root (F) right up to the 5th (C) before descending to the C two octaves lower over the next two bars.
What I like about this lick is the way he descends this scale roughly in thirds but mixing up this pattern slightly as well as changing direction to ascend the scale again which keeps the line interesting and not sounding like an exercise.
The other technique that Henderson uses in this lick is repetition. In the first bar the run up the scale is repeated and the phrase beginning the second bar is also repeated an octave lower beginning the final bar.
The most important factor I've found in successfully playing this lick is to take the time to really learn which fingers to use on your left hand to avoid stumbling over yourself as you bring it up to tempo. Start slow with the metronome at around 80bpm and bring it up by 5bpm when you feel comfortable playing it at that tempo. The original lick is at 125bpm which on constant 8th note triplets spanning two and a half octaves is quite a challenge!
I am working on transcribing this whole solo at the min so look out for that coming soon!!
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