IMPROVISATION

o Landing on chord notes, filling non chord notes

 The best guitarists can CONTROL DISSONANCE. There are two levels of
dissonance – the non-chord notes, and the non-scale notes.
- Remember that the same notes/group of notes played over different chords will give a
different sound due to their changed function over those chords. SO, GOOD REPETITION OF
NOTES IS SUCH THAT THEY MEAN SOMETHING THE FIRST TIME AND SOMETHING ELSE THE
SECOND TIME.
o Pick chord progression, and play the same lick over it
 Alter rhythm but not pitch
 Alter pitch but not rhythm
 Alter last few notes
 Add some vibrato, hammer-ons, pull offs, bends, and harmonics. Create 10 ways.
o START BY CREATING SHORT, COMPLETE PHRASES.
 Play them over a progression and achieve this by having a solid beginning
and ending. They must not sound like random collection of notes. CREATE
25 PHRASES.
 REMEMBER, playing random notes from the scale over a progression is like
uttering random words. We need to play phrases that say something
meaningful.
 A great exercise – play phrases as you exhale and stop when inhaling. This will shift
your focus to individual phrases (tb and as a bonus you learn relaxed breathing while
playing)
 CRAMMING Exercise: play as many notes from a scale as you can AS FAST AS YOU
CAN within a count of four – finish EXACTLY at the end of the count with a staccato
note.
 Have a chord progression going for this
 Next step – alternate between two scale positions for this
o GETTING OUT OF THE ORDINARY
 The predictable boring flow of notes is what makes a solo boring. You need to learn
the RHYTHMIC variations in order to break this. The extreme case is rubato –
unpredictable, leaving the listener without clue when the next note is coming and
what it will be. Do not overuse this, use it to establish a certain level of uncertainty.
 Exercise – take a short phrase and create 20 different rhythmic variations.
 You can also take dry rhythm (no notes played) and create 20 variations.
 Create 10 rubato variations.

o TB ROAD TO IMPROVISATION
 SPEED UP SCALES
 Then move up and down randomly, e.g. string 5,6,5,4,5,4,3,2,3,4,5,4,3,2,1
 Then add scale run patterns
 Then add things like double picking each string
 Add hammers, pulls, slides etc
 NOW SOLO-IMPROVISE!
 IMPROVISATION COMMON MISTAKES
- COMMON MISTAKES
o Not using fourth intervals while soloing in blues scale – because it is easy to
alternate between fingers left and right. It is also to do this cleanly, especially with
distortion – the remedy is to master the finger rolling technique. Without the fourth
intervals, your solos will sound similar and lack one whole dimension.
o Never starting a phrase on the upbeat – it is boring to always start phrases on
downbeat. Best thing is to mix this up.