I have not done any improvisation, but would like to start. Is there a good approach to getting started with improvisation? I need some examples of a good improvisation and the thought process that went into it.

Thanks.

First get a good basic knowledge of scales, modes and chord structures. Then find some other muso's, define a chord pattern and vamp on it. You really need other musicians to improvise. To improvise on your own is no different to trial and error composition in my book. You need to keep taking others ideas and extend them as they play and kind of feed off eachother.

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No no and no

If you have not done so learn:

long way - this can take a loooong time but you will be better
1. Ear training
2. major scales
3. minor pentatonic and blues start with Am.
4. chord and scale relations plus when you have an ear trining done meaning you can recognize what chords are playing.
5. If you can sing your solo you can play it.
6. Jam with people

When you get the above, apply the knowledge to minor scales and develop whatever you want from there. There is lifetime of learning.

short(er) way
1 Learn pentatonic and blues scales
2. Learn licks tecnique from web and copy your heroes (use tab)
3. Jam with people
Short way will get you to some songs quicker but will limit you in the future.

Hope that helps

Hi Rudy: well obviously you need tons of good licks at your disposal, and the muscle memory to play them on demand in any position and key.

But then the world is full of guys who can go: "F#minor? OK, here's 15 minutes of finger boggling chops..."

It gets to be a very dull kind of "improvisation".

I think the key to this is something much more difficult. Hold the tune in your mind the whole time you're playing and make phrases that relate to it and take it places. And often that ain't about playing ten thousand notes a minute. Sometimes it's just about playing the melody, with perhaps a little change or twiddle that throws it into a new light.

Far more challenging and far more rewarding. Therein lies a lifetime of musical exploration...

Cheers - C

DanielHelc:

Thanks!

I've done 2 and 3 reasonably well, am having some difficulty with 4, am just beginning 1 and am finding it challenging. The goal is to do 5. After I can do 5 I think I may be ready for 6, but I just don't have the skill yet to play with others.

Can you recommend a good approach to ear training? I am beginning to recognize notes, but I simply am not understanding how to identify a chord.

1. Ear training
2. major scales
3. minor pentatonic and blues start with Am.
4. chord and scale relations plus when you have an ear trining done meaning you can recognize what chords are playing.
5. If you can sing your solo you can play it.
6. Jam with people

Well it is great to get a bunch of backing trax that are made to just jam with, and are not songs you know. You might find one that says Dorian in A and the likes. It is always great to know the changes of any thing you are jamming over as I love things that modulate or breakdown into another set of changes but just take it slow first. You want to hear a track that you never really heard before and then slowly work on putting some melodic lines together to form a head.

Then you can label that part A and then where a chorus would be you could label that part B and then after two times around take a solo. You cand find nice ballads or a stagnet one chord track but try to find ones that last 4 to 5 minutes at least Also find good old E and A jams and run all your favorite licks like triplets,scale sequences ,string skipping just whatever you feel like playing or making up. This is a great way to practice licks that give you trouble as you can play the same lick the duration of the track

I have so many backing tracks that I would approach them as if I were writing an instrumental the sin now is I have a lot on tape and its been so long I forgot what I was doing in most of them.lol But remember to play in as many keys as you can and to have at least a little cassete player handy to tape what your doing so you can see things take form. And always play with as many people as you can as every one little jam is like five sessions you do by yourself.

Good way to ear training hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Disclaimer: I am not the music teacher so I will try to explain this sometimes boring but important process. I don't have a profound ear like some musicians (I can't tell if your b string is out of tune the first time you strike a chord)

I have personaly seen and read 100 different ways. Everybody has an individual approach but the one that helped me and is helping me in understanding this is to train "solfeggio" or "solfege" method with the "fixed" pitch, which means that it is allways like this

"Do" is allways C

Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
C D E F G A B C


1. Tune the guitar to concert pitch

2. Play a single note C scale and sing each note all 7 + root
do this until you can tune your voice to guitar and you might need somebody to help you that allready knows this.
I do not have a word to describe how you would know when you are in tune.

3. Change keys, play a single note and sing tonic, 3rd, 4th, 5th with LA, LA, NA, NA or whatever because singers use different notations for # an b tones.

4. Once you tune your voice to the single notes. Now play open major chords C,A, G, E, D and tune your voice to those singing LA, LA or just invent the song (I can turn on CNN and sing about current events if the inspiration is not there).

5. From major chords you were playing derivemajor scale and play iii chord, IV and V chord or create some sort of chord progression and trust your ears now because you will start to notice how the chords are fitting together and resolving. Tune your voice to that. Experiment with Minor scales.

6. Listen to the music from the best sound source you have and try to gues/play with the tune and tune yourself.

7. Play with others you will learn how to tune to each other. You will find that many other musicians don't have a luxory to tune their instrument on the whim like guitarists. so you will have to tune to them.
Everybody out of tune but in tune with each other = JAZZ

I forgot another thing to mentioned once you do what i suggested you will also find your "vocal range", you will learn where to squeze the note and where it all goes to "falseto" (i think that is the term when your voice goes to squeel).

So there..... I am going to sing about this now (kidding, back to work..)

Hope that helps

I think Ceri's advice is excellent. Brian May says that great solos come from great songs, and I think that's true. I've been to too many blues jams where a guy gets his turn at a solo and just goes wheeee wheedle deedle deedle deeeee for his twelve bars. The audience is left wondering what the hell that had to do with the song.

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I really like all them "Aster" guitars. You know, like the Stratoc, Telec and Jazzm.

wow...lots of fantastic advise....what helped me tons and tons...when I went to college and had a semester of Music Theory....I had one of those old school Classical Musician snob professors who hated guitar players...and he really laid into anyone who played guitar but we were better for it. He was fantastic for challenging us to really learn Theory and once you get that down...man improv is so much easier...hope that this helps...and for the Classical guys...no offense intended...

Try improvising over a drum machine or backing track, it can get kind of boring if your just on your own. There are some good backing tracks on youtube. Definately try and find other musicians to jam with, because as fun as backing tracks are a real band is a million times more fun. And you learn more from a band situation than you could locked in your bedroom.

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I will usually learn a particular scale pattern, record a progression that relates to that scale then play over that progression endlessly. After a while, I start to move out of the scale more developing more melodic runs and eventually arrive at some sort of acceptable solo. Once in a while, I actually end up with something really cool. Natually, that would be the one time I didn't have the recorder running.

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Calling an illegal alien an undocumented immigrant is like calling a drug dealer an undocumented pharmicist.

My experience in learning to improvise came from learning all of the chords and the different inversions of how to play them. After awhile I could hear notes within the chords that fit with what was being played to jam or improvise with.

I'm not a schooled musician or know a lot of theory, but I've managed to learn enough to make a living playing music for a good long time.

If you know the circle of fifths, it will help you know what positions on the fretboard will work for improvising.

Lastly, listen...and listen really good and try to guess what key a song is in and then check and see how close you were. The closer you get to recognizing the keys, the sooner everything else will start to make sense.

Good luck!

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Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

When I first started improvising, it was back in the early 80's when metal was king. Lots of guitar solos to those songs, and most aren't that easy for a beginner.

I liked (and still like) learning different guitar parts and solos. To me, that's my musical vocabulary. It's like a language to me, and know lots of words, phrases helped me put sentences together, and structured them into "stories" that I would feel good about. After a lot of that, I could just pick things apart that I heard and could figure out what they played, how they played it, and slowly started putting my own spin on things. Later on, I was able to pick the things I liked playing best and that ended up start out as my "own" style.

Fast forward to today, and I can play pretty much whatever I hear. If I can hear it in my head and it's my own idea, I can figure it out pretty quick. If it's someone else's and something new, I can probably figure it out and nail the tone and feel of it.

I still get a lot of inspiration from non-guitar music. Sax lines, piano riffs, African jazz, Turkish 7/4 stuff - anything musical. When I want to expand a bit, I'll purposely listen to things most guitar players wouldn't and try to translate that to my version on guitar or bass.