The Book of Licks

Improvising in the jazz tradition is just like learning a language. We need to expand our vocabulary in the exact same way if we want to have interesting things to say when we play.

While transcribing complete solos or large parts of them is extremely beneficial for improving your musicianship, concentrating on the individual phrases within those solos is a seriously high-leverage activity.

The 50 phrases in this book were curated from the existing Standards Studio units inside the BetterSax Membership. Think of this as a phrase book for learning the language of jazz. Treat each of these phrases as something you can use in conversation as you develop your improvisational fluency.

Not only will they help make your musical conversations more interesting, but they will make what you say on your instrument coherent and understandable by a wide audience.

Take them through all 12 keys to increase technical facility and apply them directly to chord progressions you are working on. Same as you would introduce a new phrase in real life situations if you were learning a spoken language.

Practice using the vocabulary in context and it will eventually become part of the way you communicate musically.

This process is what will noticeably improve your playing and soloing. I hope this collection of vocabulary makes that task much easier.