You do not need a new idea for every phrase. Blues players often take one short lick and play it again, moved, bent a little differently or ended somewhere new, and each time it sounds like a new sentence in the same voice.
The lick, as written
One lick, over A7: ♭7 G, 1 A, ♭3 C, 1 A.
Four notes over three beats. It starts on the ♭7, and comes to rest on the root, with vibrato. The dashed lines are the notes of A7, and that last note is one of them.
Off the beat
Start the same lick a little later, on the last third of the first beat, and it pushes against the beat instead of sitting on it. Nothing else has changed, but it sounds more urgent.
The same lick, a third of a beat later
One lick, over A7: ♭7 G, 1 A, ♭3 C, 1 A.
Four notes over three beats, starting on the a of beat one, the last third of it. The root it comes to rest on now falls on the a of beat three. The dashed lines are the notes of A7.
A new place in the bar
Now start it on beat three. It crosses the bar line, and the root it ends on falls on the first beat of the next bar, where it sounds more final than it did in the middle of the bar.
The same lick, from beat three
One lick, over A7: ♭7 G, 1 A, ♭3 C, 1 A.
Four notes over three beats, starting on beat three. The root it comes to rest on now falls on beat one of the next bar. The dashed lines are the notes of A7.
A new ending
Finally, change only the last note. End on the 5 instead of the root and the lick stops sounding finished. It becomes a call that needs an answer, and the answer can be the lick again, ending on the root.
The same lick, left open
One lick, left open, over A7: ♭7 G, 1 A, ♭3 C, 5 E.
Four notes over three beats. It starts on the ♭7, and comes to rest on the 5, with vibrato. The dashed lines are the notes of A7, and that last note is one of them.
Put the four together over a chorus and you have a solo made from a single idea, which is how a listener hears it: one voice thinking aloud, rather than twelve bars of different licks.
This lesson was drafted with the help of AI, so it may contain a mistake. Its diagrams are drawn by Everyfret’s own software. How Everyfret is made