I was watching a video on a Jerry Bergonzi jazz vocabulary exercise (which isn’t pertinent to this post) and the presenter briefly referenced a concept from book entitled Make it Stick. I haven’t read the book, but about half the books in my to-be-read list are about learning theory and skills acquisition, so it’s going in the pile soon. Recall, not repetition. Basically, the idea is that you’re going to have more efficient learning if you force yourself to recall something rather than just repeat it. You have to get it off the paper, and into your head. I see this all the time in lessons. Someone comes in struggling with last week’s material. They open their book and begin deciphering it from the written music. I immediately stop them and we spend the lesson with me coaching them through a practice session, learning the material deeply, usually with a metronome. Often, it takes only a few minutes for them to learn the material, and they are noticing significant progress by the end of the lesson.

Here is a tab/sheet music for some Tony Rice Style Crosspicking to spice up your rhythm playing!

Here’s a cool intermediate blues riff to add to your vocabulary that’s part of my arrangement for “Help Me” by Sonny Boy Williamson II. You can use it for a simple, soulful minor blues groove at the jam session, or even use it to write your own song. There’s a lot of recycling in the blues!

Here are a few cool chord moves you can do to spice up your basic blues comping in the key of G. The pdf with the chord diagrams is in the comments below. Ask as many questions as you want, and give me ideas for future lessons.