What you can do with licks is virtually limitless: changing the first/last note, playing with the rhythm and even changing what beat you start the lick on will give it a different feel (More on this on my blog “Phrase Development”). But one of the coolest things to do is to “change the mood” of the lick by changing the mode.
The biggest thing is to understand the difference between our 3 different type of Modes:
Major | Ionain: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7
Example: E – F# – G# – A – B – C# – D#
Mixolydian: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – b7
Example: E – F# – G# – A – B – C# – D
Lydian: 1 – 2 – 3 – #4 – 5 – 6 – 7
Example: E – F# – G# – A# – B – C# – D#
Let’s take a look at my Mixolydian Licks | 3 (PDF | Video)
In practice we’d have to change all the degrees/notes used in a lick to their new degree/note. Since this example I’m going from Mixolydian to Major and Mixolydian to Lydian I’d be changing:
Mixolydian to Major: All b7’s (D’s) to 7’s (D#’s)
Mixolydian to Lydian: All b7’s (D’s) to 7’s (D#’s) & All 4’s (A’s) to #4’s (A#)
Let’s take a look at my First Lick:
I see a D (7th fret – 3rd string) and A (5th fret – 1st string), so I’d be changing those appropriately as you can see in both of the “new licks”.
Let’s take a look at my Second Lick:
Now I did change the 2nd and 3rd to include the 4th instead of a chromatic just for illustration of how this works. I see a D (10th fret – 1st string) and A (10th fret – 2nd string), so I’d be changing those appropriately as you can see in both of the “new licks”.
Let’s take a look at my Third Lick:
I bend the first time we see a D note here (15th fret – 2nd string) but we also see one later on the 4th string 12th fret. We also see an A note (14th fret – 3rd string) which we have to alter our bend as well.
Try these out over of my Drone Backing Tracks to get a feel for the different licks in different modes without having to worry about whether or not it fits the overall chord progression! Dig!