Sonny Rollins F Minor Lick from Strode Rode

I have posted a line Sonny played on this tune before, (off of Saxophone Colossus), it was a very juicy lick from the bridge of Strode Rode, and here is another equally juicy lick from the beginning of his solo.

The band drops out and it is just bass and Sonny playing over the chords, and it is basically just F minor, but not natural minor, (with an Eb) but melodic minor, with an E natural.

Here is the lick as Sonny plays it


And here it is written out, first at a slower tempo and then at a faster more Sonny-like tempo.

Slow Speed

bass lick tempo 100 4/4 |Fmin r8 e8 f ab g f e g |f e f c ab f b ab |bb ab g f e f g e |f2 r2

Insanely Fast

bass lick tempo 220 4/4 |Fmin r8 e8 f ab g f e g |f e f c ab f b ab |bb ab g f e f g e |f2 r2

There are a ton of things to learn from this lick:

1. What chord tones does he use? (hint - all of them)
   
2. How does he make those chord tones fall on strong beats?
   
3. Why does the lick sound so strong and resolve so well?
   
4. What non-chord tones does he use, and where do those get placed?
   

And this is just two measures of his solo, he goes on and on like this for two full choruses. Gonna post more licks as I decipher them.
Check out how awesome his entire solo is here via YouTube:

The Pentatonic Lick Factory

UPDATE - added a PDF that shows a bunch of examples

You can never have too many pentatonic licks. Ever.

But, in the real world what usually happens is first you learn the little box shapes, okay cool, then maybe some of the other shapes, the ones that start on notes other than the root, and then.....it kinda tapers off.

What can happen after a while is you just keep playing the same box-shape licks over and over. And over and over and over. Or maybe you find another pattern that fits under your fingers, but you only have one or two familiar patterns you default back to or they are the ones that fit under everybody's fingers. I mean, I certainly have never done that. Of course not. Never. Okay, I totally have.

Then the question becomes - Well, how do I make/invent/discover/create new material anyway? If only there were some repeatable, step-wise process one could use to generate new licks and phrases for use in solos. Oh what a great world it would be...

Of course there is.

And I am going to show y'all one.

Links for Approach Tones

Here are a couple of links to more info on using approaches to chord tones in your solos:

1. A detailed post from a guitar forum (I know, just pretend it isn't) about various approach tones and using chord tones as targets.
   
2. A supposed Mike Stern lesson on approach tones. Written in god-awful brain damaging tab for your mental anguish, but it re-enforces some of the stuff about approach tones and shows a few more kinds.
   
3. This one has notation and a midi file.