OK another question- one of the many things I get from this lesson is that a good portion of improvising isn’t quite what we think of as “improvising” in other contexts? Meaning, all this time I’ve been thinking guitarists are just coming up with these incredible sounding little note sequences on the literal fly, but the reality is that they’re actually sequences they’ve learned, studied, or found on their own, but memorizing and reusing them over and over in different configurations? So that’s the secret!? It makes a lot of sense but I didn’t ever perceive it as such.
Yes, improvising isn’t making random things up on the spot, its applying things you know well in different ways/context. It’s like you wouldn’t make up words to tell a story, you would use the vocabulary that you know.
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It still seems complicated, like some memorized licks might not be in the same key as others, so they will not go together. So there is much less freedom in improvising than it seems. I’d always assumed a guitarist must know the fretboard by sight and sound SO well, that they can find the right notes wherever they are and create whatever sounds they’re thinking of at the time. And I suppose some wildly good guitarists can do that. It sounds like improvising is actually very practiced beforehand.
Also deconstructing and only using different parts or sections. Not always finishing on the same note to create a question that has to be answered. All good fun assuming you can remember the darned things when you need them ! 
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Another skill required is transposing the licks into different keys not just one. What is harder is taking a lick in one time signature and trying it in another, say 4/4 to 6/8. That often ends in tears !
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Just what Toby would be doing the now if he could remember them 
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What I would add Stacy, if you know a lick in the Key of A, just shuffle it back two frets and you now know it in G. Move it up two frets and the same lick is in B another fret up C. So if you know one lick you can play it in all 12 keys. Its that simple but does take practice.
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Ha I’m Blimmed out so I’ve been weeding this afternoon !
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I’ve got a lot to learn! Some things are simultaneously simpler and more complicated than I thought!
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Can anyone confirm what kinds of mutes Justin is doing in the intro playthrough? It looks like he is doing his trick where he releases pressure on the strings after he plucks them during the shuffle sections. Is there also palm muting going on at the same times?
Hi @artax_2 , it sounds and looks to me like he’s using (at least) 3 different muting techniques.
- He does a light palm mute throughout (mostly, he sometimes lifts it when emphasizing some bass notes).
- I see him also muting by laying his picking hand across the strings at times.
- Lastly, he (sometimes) mutes the bass note of the open E or A string right after playing it (on beats 1 and 3 only) quickly touching the string with the ring finger of his fretting hand. I have not seen him teach this and I gather it’s an advanced technique, which he does without thinking. (You can see it at the beginning of the shuffle, right around 0:06 of the video).
If you are learning this piece, I would only try to employ light palm muting and not worry about the other types of muting. Once you can play it very confidently, then you might go back and look at more advanced muting, perhaps starting with where to lift the palm mute to let the bass notes sound more clearly.
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Justin mentions in this video that it is part of a ‘blues study on the website’. What does he mean? I’ve had a look at the website and can’t find any blues study!
Website search gave me this …
Thanks but this is Grade 4, and also doesn’t include this lesson as far as I can see. Perhaps it’s missing as the front page notes 5 lessons but there are only 4 showing.
@Stuartw Justin could possibly mean that this approach is part of an overall “Blues Study” concept; meaning there are many blues lessons to come as one advances up the grades.
The E13 chord at the end of this piece is very tasty (and jazzy). Peter
You may be right but it’s not how it came over in the lesson.
Not got that far. Can’t get passed the intro at the moment!
Just realised that there are 5 beats in the last bar of the intro. I didn’t pick this in the video but is shown in the pdf. Why is this?
1/4 note followed by 2 1/8s and then 2 1/4s equals 4 beats. Not 5.
Count 1 2 and 3 4.
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@Stuartw There’s also this, that is a paid for module, that develops these solo acoustic blues concepts:
I’m pretty sure that the Lick-and-riff lesson was previously grouped together with the other Blues Studies (I remember, because I was very eager to do them all). I suppose Justin later moved this one lesson to Grade 3, where he thought it would be a good fit.