Originally Posted by: MaxM81

With all those blues scale runs that turn up, of course you can do them note for note, but it's not really necessary. They are all slightly different from each other and the important thing is to vary slightly from one to the other, but not play them exactly as on the record. Gilmore doesn't do that either on stage.

Good observation. That's the goal of the lessons I linked: to isolate those managable chunks or small units. Those are the bits that get reused, recycled & with variations. That's how you develop a library of licks. Or a vocabulary or repertoire of things to play & to make variations upon.

At some point you actually have to work on some series of notes, or some specific physical motion. Because those are the building blocks of what you will use when you play licks, totally improvised or planned, or anywhere in between those 2 extremes.

Hope that helps!