[cybersmyth]

I've gotten pretty good at playing songs and doing good rhythm and such to people singing. But a lot of real good players just seems to play licks to a song while the singer is singing, or throw in licks as filler, rather than strums or actually picking melody notes. I haven't really wrapped my head around how licks work and have a few questions about them.

1. Are they just improvised? Or do you learn a lot of them and throw them in whenever? Or do you play out every lick before you play?

2. If you have memorized some how do you know when to use them?

3. Are they usually just used as filler on songs, or do you build them around the melody of a song?

4. Are there any "tricks" or rules to making them, or do you just play the notes in a scale in an order that you like?

Any insight would be helpful. Thanks.

Joe