Learning jazz and blues licks can help you hear how scales, chord tones, chromatic notes, and rhythm come together in real musical phrases.

In this lesson, you’ll learn seven licks over G7. Rather than only memorizing them, we’ll look at what each phrase is doing so you can adapt the ideas and create lines of your own.

All the examples will be over a G 7 chord but they would also work over a G 9 chord.

If you want a quick review before starting, revisit the Mixolydian scale and dominant 7 arpeggios. Both show up throughout the phrases below.

Although these licks are written with guitar tabs, they can be applied to other instruments as well. Grab your guitar and let’s get started!

Lick 1

For the first lick, we are mostly thinking of the scale notes for a G mixolydian scale, which has the notes G, A, B, C, D, E, and F. The only exception is the approach note which is a half step below the 3rd of the chord.

Roadmap practice: Learn Lick 1 slowly and identify the notes from G Mixolydian. Then find the chromatic approach note that leads into the 3rd of G7. Play the lick again and listen to how that approach note creates tension before resolving.

Once the phrase feels comfortable, change one thing while keeping the main idea intact. You could change the rhythm, begin on a different scale note, or create a different approach into the 3rd.

Lick 2

Lick 2 connects two 6th intervals, B to G and A to F, with chromatic movement. This creates a blues-style line while still outlining important notes from G7.

Lick 3

Lick 3 combines a triplet with chromatic movement while landing on important G7 chord tones at strong points in the phrase, including the 3rd, b7, and 5th.

Roadmap practice: Play Lick 3 and listen for where the phrase lands on G7 chord tones. Then keep the same rhythm but change a few connecting notes while preserving those target notes.

The remaining licks give you more vocabulary to explore. Use them as examples of different approaches rather than feeling that you need to memorize all seven before moving forward.

Lick 4

Lick 4 uses the G minor blues scale over G7. This creates the familiar contrast of minor-blues notes against a dominant chord.

Lick 5

This jazz lick uses the dominant bebop scale, which adds a chromatic note between the b7 and root. This gives you another way to connect scale notes while keeping important chord tones in strong rhythmic positions.

Lick 6

Lick 6 uses 7th-chord arpeggios built from notes inside G Mixolydian. The opening outlines F Major 7, while the beginning of measure 2 outlines B minor 7 b5.

Lick 7

Lick 7 uses upper chord tones to create more color over G7. The opening notes outline D minor 7 with added E and G before the phrase moves downward with chromatic approach notes.

Roadmap practice: Choose one lick from this lesson and make it your own. Change the rhythm, ending, or approach notes while keeping the main musical idea recognizable. Then move your version to a different dominant 7 chord.

Wrapping up

These seven licks show different ways to combine dominant 7 chord tones with scale notes, chromatic movement, intervals, arpeggios, and rhythmic ideas.

The goal is not to collect seven phrases exactly as written. Start with one or two, understand what makes them work, then change part of the phrase and use the same idea in another key.

Over time, this turns someone else’s lick into vocabulary you can use naturally in your own improvising.

For example, if you learned a phrase over G7, move the same idea to C7 or D7. Think about the scale degrees and chord tones rather than memorizing fret numbers so the phrase becomes movable vocabulary.

If you want to take these ideas into a longer progression, try applying them to a 12 bar blues or minor blues progression.

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