Improvising

[Isaac Moss]

Hey I was wondering if I could get some help from you guys on your approaches to improvising and learning scales.
First off whenever you guys like to solo over something what do you think about? For the most part I just kinda feel it and end up noodling around, sometimes I end up sound pretty good but others not so much. Although one pretty big reoccurring problem is a lot of my improvs sound really similar to each other which isn’t good obviously. Most of the time I improvise in the same key and use the same shapes and I really wanna break out of that.Also do you follow the chords the whole time as well too?
Also do you guys have any approaches to learning scales with a strategy. In other words do you like stick with one scale until you’re good at soloing in it or do you experiment a lot?
Thank You!

 

[idssdi]

Scales is usually just playing it up and down a couple times and then find notes I and group them together to see which notes I like in succession after each other.
Usually with improvising I follow to chords. Not nescecarily scale wise but very much Color tone wise. Specific notes sound great over different chords so I’ll use that. From that and the scale that works you can come up with a melody that sounds great and definetely not the same everytime. Melodies tend to change depending on how you feel. Of course you can use a whole bunch of different scales over each chord, that works as well. Another thing to realize is using all the different positions of a scale can enhance you a lot. Then there’s arpeggios, you should try to incorporate some arpeggios in your solos as well. They can help finding melodies and used right they sound amazing!
This may be a lot to think about but this tends to be my philosophy when I either improvise or write a solo(writing usually comes from improvisation)

 

[Isaac Moss]

Thanks for the advice man I know I really need to up my Improvising skills and you just helped me I’m gonna start following chords and stuff instead of noodling lol I think I’m gonna start only trying to follow like two or three at a time so I can think about what I’m doing and stuff

 

[Jak Angelescu]

You kind of answered your own question. “I play in the same key a lot and tend to use the same positions.” Start with different backing tracks that are in different keys OR different feels
for example: You’ll have a different feel when playing a slow Chicago blues shuffle than when you’re playing a Boogie Delta blues jam. So choose different backing tracks with different tempos, styles, feels, and key signatures. And learn your positions for the key signatures.
I can’t stress enough how helpful it’s been taking the lessons from the beginning. It’s helped my improvisation a lot. The way PG does them, it helps you see how ALL things connect. I’d suggest you taking a look at the “Solo Trouble” forum that Syn started if you haven’t yet. Literally 14 pages worth of information
Learn licks. Listen to things that you hear other guitarists do and put them in your improvisation. Create tension and melody if you’re getting stuck As far as learning scales with strategy, I feel the concept of “Learn to use and use to learn”. Don’t get stuck in the process of “playing up and down the neck a billion times” to memorize a scale. Because all you’re doing is enabling yourself to play that scale position faster, but you’re not really USING it. So learn your scale pattern to where you’ve got it memorized, and use it immediately in your playing. Change it up. Bend on it, slide, etc. Then the more you USE it, you’ll LEARN what you can and can’t do with it
Hope this helps!

 

[Calvin Phillips]

Will read comments after.
1. My thought process for solos has changed since improving. You can a, improv til you got your solo or b,play the song out in your head and the melody will shape itself I your head. Then just tab it out. Both work.. just 1 is obviously more of a visual picture.
2. The solo itself.. usually contains the song melody.. somewhere in the song is a melody thatll fit perfect in the solo.find it..identify it and write around that. Theres many different ways to play the same notes.
3. For scales. I’ve learned gminor. And learning 1 I noticed the rest follow a similar pattern. So realistically all the scales are a similar pattern. Once you have 1 down.. you’ll find the rest come easier. You can also learn the arpeggios of the scale. That’s where I am now. That way you can play the scale more vertical then horizontally through the triplets. Can also use the pentatonic scale the same way. So many possibilities from 1 scale on it’s own.
Basically what I’m saying is focus on 1 for now. Get confident. Then expand the pentatonics and arpeggios of that scale. That alone will help you mix in new licks and whatnot. New finger positions.. etc.

 

[Isaac Moss]

Thanks everyone for the advice I’ve definitely learned from these!! Keep Shreddin’!!