#01: SRV: P1 Flat 5 Slide

Playground Blues Licks
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View the full lesson at #01: SRV: P1 Flat 5 Slide | JustinGuitar

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What’s the difference between volume and master volume in the amp settings?

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I would have thought the volume controls the volume of the patch and the master controls the overall volume to the room/stage. So if you set the volume of all your patches to the same volume then use the master to control the overall volume to suit where your playing. That way when you switch patches you don’t get drastic changes in volume.

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Volume is the pre-amp side so higher = more distortion etc, master volume is the amp side so higher = louder

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Makes sense. I have a combo so I only have one volume knob

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What song is this from?

I don’t like learning licks unless I hear them in context, and hear them the way they were originally played. That way you see where the artist is coming, which I find helps me apply the to similar situations. And also to get the original FEEL for the lick.

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I think volume should more accurately be labelled “Gain”.

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It is a Fender Champ.
On Fender amps gain is labelled Volume and master volume labelled as Master.
Gain controls the amount of amplification through the preamp section and can be used to control distortion.
Master volume controls the overall volume coming out.

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Given that the lick ends on the 4th (degree of the Am scale), presumably this lick is best used either over the IV chord or transitioning to it? That makes sense to me in theory - now to test in practice!
I know these are old lessons so it’s likely the info won’t be available but (as per one of the earlier questions) it would be really helpful to have a reference to the source that Justin got the lick from. SRV produced a lot of music and has a lot of licks!

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Quick update in case of interest to anyone. I like this lick best moving from the I to the IV chord (really nice if you nail the last note of the lick at the same time as the chord changes). However, I’m also finding it really versatile coming off the IV chord to either the I chord (where you can add a slide down to the m3 or go to the root easily) or to the V chord (where you can stay on the usual last note as a chord tone (m7) or bend up to the 5th). Even if the chord change happens when you haven’t played the last few notes to resolve the lick, it can feel like a nice suspension.

Cool lick and great looking module. I’m looking forward to trying to learn these as I work on properly embedding all the pentatonic positions in my brain.

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Would you play this lick over 1 bar (4 beats) normally?

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Heya. Seems to me like the A is the root note here. Does this mean this lick is in the dorian mode and should be used over the II cord? Or can this be played over any chord?

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Correct. Although the lick starts and ends on the note D, the note A is the tonal center. The lick uses notes from the A blues scale, which contains all the notes in the A Minor Pentatonic plus a flatted fifth (the ‘blue note’, in this case the note Eb).

You can play this lick over any of the chords in an A blues progression (A7, D7 and E7), just like you can with a standard minor pentatonic scale.