Joined: 15 Oct 2005 Posts: 193 Location: Grew up in Belgium, Studying in Holland
Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 6:10 pm Post subject: Learning to improvise
Hi there,
I am playing the guitar for 13 years now, 10 years classic, and just 3 years electric. I was always teached the classic method, but now I would like to learn how to improvise. I can do it a little bit, but not that fast, and it just always comes to the same theme
Does anyone know some good books or tricks on how to learn to improvise?
I've already bought "Rock Guitar Secrets" by Peter Fischer, which deals mainly with improvising, but it is quite a big leap regarding my own playing skills.
Thats a good question. I know how you feel every time I try to improv i get this kind of blues sound everytime. I have been playing for 13 years as well and still can't do it very well.
Joined: 21 Oct 2005 Posts: 21 Location: Silkeborg, Denmark
Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 7:49 pm Post subject:
Try to listen to a lot of music...Practice some licks you really like and build more to them. The best thing to do is to listen to music. _________________ I like playing guitar
a good thing, but maybe goaway to find good sources for, is listening to an accoustic intro from a song you don't know, and than try to make a good song out of it, maybe after that, you change the intro and change everything a little bit and you have a good song. not very goaway to do, always works, but goaway to find guitar intro's like this.
step 1: learn all the scales you need. different styles have different scales you'd use. for blues; pentatonic and blues scale, for metal, harmonic minor scale, as well as the phyrgian mode.
step 2: learn some songs you really like from that genre. if you're a blues person, learn little wing, or texas flood, something like that. learn some of the trademark licks. you'll find each genre has licks that every player of that style will use.
step 3: practise those scales to hell, all along the fretboard, so you know where to go in different keys. say you're playing a blues in C, you should be able to go, hey i can play a pentatonic or blues scale in C major, or i can play A natural minor scale...or i can use elements of both.
learning many different scales will also help to not limit you to one part of the fretboard, but move all over it, as a good player should.
it takes a while to get the hang of it, but if you can pick the key, the type of scale you can use, and move around the fretboard, you'll be above a lotta players out there.
Joined: 20 Oct 2005 Posts: 126 Location: California
Posted: Sat Oct 29, 2005 1:59 am Post subject:
Many of us learn guitar by rote memorization of patterns without theory training and ear training that say, a clarinet; trumpet; or vocalist is required to study.
Pentatonic patterns lay real well for our fingers, but derives largely from a five note scale with a flatted fifth (sharped 4th) so-called "Blues" scale. The flatted fifth evokes a human vocal quality of old slave field hollers.
It is a Folk music.
The next step beyond triad theory for guitar is Diatonic, which means "two," or the study of intervals.
How these intervals effect scales and chords brings us into either Classical or Jazz theory (same thing).
In a Major scale, the halfsteps occur between the 3rd and 4th, and 7th and eighth (octave, or 1st again), and so on. Minors, et al, have their particular patterns.
I was taught (in College Music Jazz courses designed for improvising) that the next step beyond triad theory was the Harmonized Seventh scale, wherein a Major scale was played with four-note seventh chords -each corresponding with a scale step.
For instance, the first (tonic) scale degree was played as a Major Seventh, the second scale degree utilized a minor seventh chord, etc etc.
THEN, we plugged in the MODES:
We would play the tonic Maj7 chord, then play the Ionion mode up and down, then play the chord again.
Then the second scale degree (min7 chord staring on that note) say, in the key of F, now you're starting on G, with a Gmin7, the dorian mode from G to G (in two octaves), then the Gmin7 chord again.
Then Aminor7, the Phrygian mode from A to A etc.
Bbmaj7, and the Lydian,
C7 (dominant 7, our favorite Blues and folk C7) and the Mixolydian mode from C to C etc.
Dmin7 and Aolean from D to D (this is now the sixth degree of the scale in F, get it?)
The seventh degree of the F scale is E. The chord is E half-diminished seventh, (AKA E7b5) and the mode is Locrian, from E to E.
and finally, F again (this time at the 13th fret).
The fingerings can be found in Jazz theory for guitar books.
Anyway, this was MY basics for approaching diatonic Jazz improvisation at the College Music level. Later, I was allowed to add back in my Pentatonic licks once I'd conquered the Diatonic patterns and could change modes and chords (making the changes) within a song structure, which came very easily, once I understood the harmonized seventh scale, and how Western Music and structure plugs into it.
Applying it to the GUITAR NECK makes the theory work for YOU, instead of guessing where the song leading is going next. It makes music make sense, and made me a much more consistant player and writer of songs/music.
This is not the ONLY approach to learning Jazz improv patterns that will work on the guitar neck. It's just how I was taught. The pursuit is lifelong, but generally now when someone drops an unfamiliar tune on the music stand in front of me, I can quickly analyze the ket centers and know where things are.
The whole POINT of this training is to hear a melody in your head and GET IT TO COME OUT THE AMP!
There are other approaches, but the point of "improvisation" is to COMPOSE instanteaously: melodies on the neck that make sense in the language of music, just like we speak using nouns, verbs, and sentences.
It allows communication between other musicians because we know where the harmony is coming from, and going. Our sentences make musical sense!
Scales and arpeggios are not music, but they are the "happy hunting grounds" for musical expressions derived from them. Some are more fertile than others.
I too, like the Phrygian mode, and harmonic minor scale, and return to them often (in context of the song's harmony) for ideas, as well as Mixolydian, and ALL the other TOOLS! That's what they are: tools.
There is no magic wand someone can wave over your head and overnight you've "got it."
You learn the tools and how and when it's appropriate to use what where, in the context of whatever style you are approaching to improvise upon the changes (chords) of the songs.
This is also called chord/scale approach. Some dis it and say they just play "by ear," but an analysis of their music will reveal that they are adhering to SOME form, self-taught or no, of Diatonic theory on the neck.
Wes Montgomery is often cited as a Master who did not know how to read music and had no formal guitar training.
That may be, but he had SOME system he worked out for understanding where he was in the changes and how to negotiate music with others!
Joined: 15 Oct 2005 Posts: 193 Location: Grew up in Belgium, Studying in Holland
Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2005 12:23 pm Post subject:
Wow Plank, great!
And also thx Phantom!
I haven't read it all yet, but it should really come in handy when I'm sick of studying and want to do something else for a couple of minutes
Grtz.
Edit: -Yep, Read it, Loved it. Hove to read it again however to full understand the meaning of everything...
Something I just thought of and plan to try, starting right now:
Each day I plan to come up with a new riff or idea, then tinker with it and use it in improvisation (to a backing track or something) and maybe come up with a couple of variations.
The next day I will go over that riff/idea then come up with a new one and practice using both in improvisation...etc etc
It shouldn't take too long to get together a 'library' of riffs that I can use at will when improvising...
Of course to master it each idea needs to be easily transposed to any key...well I didn't expect it to be easy! _________________ 7 String Mahem.
