Stuck in the soloing rut....:(

[Mild_child]

Well it seems like, whenever I read a thread about help with improv, you guys just say "Just mess around with the scale until you find something good"
Well it's hard for me to make anything out of the scales! My Teacher wrote down the whole G Major White Note Scale and i can't seem to get anything good out of it. It sucks especially when someone tells me to jam along with them and I make crap.

I believe that I'll get better with the music i listen to, so are there any artists that are especially talented in guitar "in any genre of music" you'd recommend?

Also, I always have to refer back to the scale sheet when soloing, is there any practices you'd do to be able to remember all the scales (other than just playing them)

[Bass-AKIRA]

Scales are good, but i find them annoying when not able to read msuic on guitar:thumb: but....you really just need to make some simple triplet rifs? get someone to grab a guitar and play simple barre/power chords and experiment..Not with a scale but with all the notes on the fretboard.just go wiht your ear and get jammin:naughty:

[Trigger_003]

/writes up a beginner's improv lesson

I'll post it when I'm done :).

[Trigger_003]

Hmm. Well you said you didn't want "Just mess around with the scale until you find something good", so this is self-inflicted :p.

Improvisation is a hard thing to explain, like writing lyrics. There are just so many possibilities, and besides a few key bits of knowledge (which even then, not everyone uses), the main restriction is your imagination.

Start simple!
You’ve gotta start somewhere, and simple is that somewhere. It’ll be really hard to get yourself sounding good if you don’t. To do this, we're going to start with a single scale and use a single key. But even then, we're not going to be using the whole scale.

When you begin improvisation, it's always overwhelming. As I said, you’re almost limited by your creativity alone... there are so many choices. What note to play, what dynamic (loud soft), where to play at what speed (including where not to play at all), which mode you should be working with, the list goes on. And when you're starting out, it's enough just to worry about what note to play next. It's a mammoth task to cope with.
So what will make this easier? Well, reducing the amount of choices you have is definitely going to help. So I’m going to hope you don’t mind and make some choices for you, and then you can focus on just one or two things at a time instead of trying to cope with many more. Let's forget about all the dynamics and so forth. All we're going to do is learn one octave of the C major scale:

e|----------------|
B|----------------|
G|----------2-4-5-|
D|----2-3-5-------|
A|3-5-------------|
E|----------------|
Play this through slowly while looking at it. Ascending and descending each time. Play it at least 5 times. When you’re feeling confident with it (take your time there), look away from the tab - you can look at your guitar if you want - and play it through at least another 5 times from memory. If you can’t remember it at all, go pack to playing it looking at the tab (say another 5 or 10 times), then try again.

When you’re fine with this scale, we can move onto the next section.

Working with rhythm
Open up this midi backing track:
http://trombone.org/jfb/snd/Cmaj.mid
It’s very basic, but that’s a good thing at the moment. When this track starts to play, you will hear clicks of a metronome. This sets your beat. Tap your foot along or do whatever you do to get into that beat. When the music starts, play that scale through in time to the backing track, ascending then descending. Start with crotchets (quarter notes), play that through twice. Then do the same in quavers (eighth notes). Then vary it a bit say C crotchet, D and E as quavers, F as a crotchet again, then G and A as quavers, and so forth throughout the scale. Just keep to the beat and maintain a pattern throughout. Keep it slow; don’t try to just race through the scale.
Listen carefully to what you sound like. See how the notes fit in with the backing track? Just get used to that and play it through a few times. If you want, experiment around a bit with lengthening some of the notes to make it fit in better. See what each of your approaches do to the feel you’re creating.

Too easy? Let’s start to improvise a bit more.

Working with the notes
By now you should that C major scale quite well. If you don’t feel like you do, go back and work with it on the backing track a bit more.
Now you can start to work with it.

As I’ve said already there are many things running through an improviser’s head – or many things that SHOULD be running through an improviser’s head – when they play. Basically, they incorporate “What, when, how?”.
What to play
When to play it
How to play it.

And that’s basically it. Before you can decide when you’re going to play a C, ultimately you have to decide that you are going to play a C in the first place.
So knowing that, you know that the first and foremost thing to consider is the “What?”.

Your scale has set this out for you somewhat... it’s said “okay, you’re going to use any of these 7 notes because these notes fit into a C major progression, which is what your backing track it using.
Some notes work better because they are part of the chord the progression being used. This track alternates between Cmaj and Cadd9. For now, we’ll work with the Cmaj.

CDEFGAB
1234567

Major chords are made out of the 1st, 3rd and 5th of the scale – in this case C, E and G. So these are the notes that are going to work really well with that chord.
Play an arpeggio with C, E, then G.
The bassist is probably using these notes too – amongst others (I didn’t check, but it’s more than likely).
Listen to the beat of the midi again and get into it. You want to work with the “drums”. But you also want to work with the piano and bass, which is why you’re playing in Cmaj with them.

Improvise with only the C, E, and G you used in the scale you started with. Explore with playing these three notes in different orders, with different rhythms, etc. Don’t feel like you have to play continuously. There are rests in music for a reason; use them to make a bit of variation and whilst you are resting, get some ideas for your next phrase.
Get creative.

Seriously, spend time on that. It’s making you be imaginative in the easiest form possible, and it really sets you up for working on harder things. The more time you spend there now, the easier it’ll be later on. Truly.

After a while you’ll probably find yourself thinking. Okay, I can play that and I can get some things sounding good, but now it’s getting a bit boring... I want to explore some more. Gradually, you can increase the range of notes you use. But spend time on each of these. The same thing applies here; the more time you spend working through step by step, the more creative you can get.

1. 1,3,5 – C, E, G (Cmaj)
2. 1,2,3,5 – C, D, E, G
3. 1,3,5,9 – C, E, G, D (Cadd9)
4. 1,2,3,5,6 – C, D, E, G, A (Cmaj pentatonic)
5. The whole Cmaj scale
6. Your own note pallet (using notes from the Cmaj scale though)
7 – optional. If you feel ready, start using notes in different octaves and on different parts of the fretboard (check out http://www.cyberfret.com/scales/guitar-codex/index.php for that).
8. Play freely, going by what your ear, mind and heart urge you to do.

With practise of these, you should be at the stage where you can wander around with various notes and get things to sound pretty good.

Continued in a bit.

[Trigger_003]

Now you’re probably getting very sick of that repetitive backing track so now you’ve got two options:
Create/find some more backing tracks in Cmaj
Start working in other keys

To start using other keys, you’re going to need to know some more scales. And like you said yourself, it’s hard to memorise loads of scales. So instead of doing that, learn the formula for a specific scale type, and get used to applying this to different keys (yay, theory).

For a major scale, the pattern is TTSTTTS... where T=tone (also written as W – whole) and S=semitone (also written as H – half). So you might’ve seen this around as WWHWWWH.

Tones and semitones are intervals between notes. If you play the third fret on a specific string, then play the fourth fret, that’s a semitone between the two notes. The distance of two frets is called a whole tone.

So say you wanted to construct Emaj. You’d firstly have to work out where an E is (let’s use an open low E string).
E|0.

Now you need to apply TTSTTTS to this. Two frets away fro E|0 is E|2. Another two frets from that is E|4. So now we have the first three notes:
E|-0-2-4
....T.T.
A fret away from E|4 is E|5. This is the same note as A|0, so to make it easier to play, we’ll put it there. From there we need a tone (A|2), tone (A|4), tone (A|6 – which is the same as D|1, so we’ll put it there, once again to make it easier to play), and lastly, a semitone (D|2).

So we end up with
E-----------------
B-----------------
G-----------------
D-------------1-2-
A-------0-2-4-----
E-0-2-4-----------

With practise of this, you'll get quicker and quicker at being able to construct these. It's possible to just create them on the spot if you just get used to it.

There are patterns for all scales. If you get used this process enough, once you've learnt the pattern, you've practically learnt that scale in all twelve keys, all over the fretboard.

Here are some backing tracks for all twelve major keys. Try to construct the scales for these using the process explained in this post, then apply the improvising process explained in my previous post. If you need help, look at that guitar-codex I linked to above.

Cmaj (which you've already used) (http://trombone.org/jfb/snd/Cmaj.mid)
Emaj (http://trombone.org/jfb/snd/Emaj.mid)
Fmaj (http://trombone.org/jfb/snd/Fmaj.mid)
Gbmaj (http://trombone.org/jfb/snd/Gbmaj.mid)
Gmaj (http://trombone.org/jfb/snd/Gmaj.mid)
Abmaj (http://trombone.org/jfb/snd/Abmaj.mid)
Amaj (http://trombone.org/jfb/snd/Amaj.mid)
Bbmaj (http://trombone.org/jfb/snd/Bbmaj.mid)
Bmaj (http://trombone.org/jfb/snd/Bmaj.mid)
Dbmaj (http://trombone.org/jfb/snd/Dbmaj.mid)
Dmaj (http://trombone.org/jfb/snd/Dmaj.mid)
Ebmaj (http://trombone.org/jfb/snd/Ebmaj.mid)

Hope that helps :thumb:

[judge_gideon]

Trea, absolutely asounding. I do hope you're saving these for your own records. ;)

On the topic of improvisational creativity, I have my own approach, which is neither better nor worse than what Trea described so well.

Most professional soloists will tell you it's more important to play on time than in key. If your notes are like a machine gun, then you have the confidence and freedom to play odd and bizarre scales, and even atonal, dissonant phrases. Your rhythmic phrasing is everything. Try to think like a drummer.

Actually, some people hum nursery rhymes to get phrasing chunks. Like:

"Old King Cole was a merry old soul, and a merry old soul was he;
He called for his pipe in the middle of the night
And he called for his fiddlers three."

You can use these as rhythmic templates to trace around and hang your notes on the structure. Even though it seems strange - these lyrical devices are invaluable in developing proper phrasing that delivers the goods.

Also, when you are soloing, try using chord tones.

Instead of only running up and down scales, try to play chord tones, skipping other notes, using larger interval leaps.

Am7
┌───────────3─5 ──────────────────┐
├─────────5────5─────────────────┤
├──────2─5───────5─2─────────────┤
├───2─5─────────────5─2──────────┤
├──3───────────────────3─────────┤
└─5─────────────────────5────────┘

D7
┌────────────2─5─2─────────────────┐
├───────────3─────3────────────────┤
├────────2─5───────5─2─────────────┤
├───────4─────────────4────────────┤
├────3─5───────────────5─3─────────┤
└─2─5─────────────────────5─2──────┘

Gmaj7
┌─────────────3─7─3──────────────────┐
├──────────3─7─────7─3───────────────┤
├─────────4───────────4──────────────┤
├──────4─5──────────────5─4──────────┤
├─────5────────────────────5─────────┤
└──3─7───────────────────────7─3─────┘

These are all the same notes in the G major scale, but you are isolating only the chord tones which are in individual chords. This makes for interesting color and fresh ideas when soloing.

[Trigger_003]

Aw thanks Greg :)
Yeah I save all this stuff for some unknown purpose in the future... lecturing at Monash? Haha.
Speaking of that, seeing you've done music college and all that, are you looking at a specific musical career/doing one currently?

You're right with the rhythmic stuff too (teamwork++).

[judge_gideon]

Yes, but currently I'm preoccupied with programming. Hopefully I'll have more time to play - and start gigging.

I want to be shocking, without having to bite the head off an animal. I want the music to be jaw-dropping. Of course, I will need to write everything out, and have dedicated/skilled musicians back me up. Until I can have my own thing, I'm just playing small gigs - weddings, parties, etc.

[Diatonic Dissonance™]

Most professional soloists will tell you it's more important to play on time than in key. If your notes are like a machine gun, then you have the confidence and freedom to play odd and bizarre scales, and even atonal, dissonant phrases. Your rhythmic phrasing is everything. Try to think like a drummer.
Yes, this is so very true.

Most people are preoccupied with the belief that you have to take up the entire time with playing. They fail to realise that a well executed rest can have a tremendous effect on your audience, and also gives you a "break" before you move into your next phrase.

I could show you what I just said in a song, but I'm lacking the provisions and time to do so. Perhaps in time.

Good evening Greg, how are we?

[davo_guitarman]

great er..... LESSON!

[OliHendrix]

Build up an army of wee phrases and add one or two into a solo
at some point, as a climax. The blues is the best place to start, any
SRV or hendrix will give you plenty of ideas.

[Trigger_003]

:).

I got a book from the Billy Hydes sale (which I didn't see Gav at :() and it brought up an interesting way to help incorporate phrasing...
It basically said that we're disadvantaged in terms of phrasing. Really, as string players, we never HAVE to take a break. Wind players do though. We (I play trombone too) have to pause every so many bars and take a breath (well, unless you've got that thing where you can breath in through your nose and out through your mouth at the same time...), and create phrasing so frequently that it quite often doesn't require any real thought to do so.
So this guy's approach, is called the Wind Guitar. Basically, exhale as you play. When you feel yourself needing to take a breath, pause. During this pause, breathe in, and then continue to play whilst breathing out again.
In the lead up to inhaling, you can also try to create/find a form of cadence (this is the ending of a phrase - works like commas, full stops, etc. - have a look at musictheory.net), which is what you'll want to do whilst improvising, instead of just stopping in the middle of nowhere and leaving your listeners wondering "What happened?"

Of course, many of you won't be able to breathe as long as an experienced wind player can... a lot of you won't have built up your lung capacity, and it's nothing to worry about. This is just a conceptual exercise to make you think about resting and developing better phrasing. It's not expected to be done while you're actually performing or anything.

Also, in the attempt to develop better, more interesting rhythms, listen to many different genres of music. You can take a rhythm used in a metal song, change the notes and incorporate it into a jazz piece and so forth. I feel world music is the best source of inspiration when it comes to rhythmic development. I mean check out some of the stuff they've got going in Cuban, Latin, Flamenco, Indian, etc. - it's mad.
You might want to have a look at this article, "Mastering Odd, Complex Time Signatures And Rhythms": http://www.guitar9.com/columnist353.html
Might open up a few ideas for you :).

[Mild_child]

^thnx Dood

I'll pay you a million dollars in my next lifetime.

Which'll probably be by the time i'm finished reading ;)

[Trigger_003]

:p Sorry about that.

[Alive]

Also, in the attempt to develop better, more interesting rhythms, listen to many different genres of music. You can take a rhythm used in a metal song, change the notes and incorporate it into a jazz piece and so forth. I feel world music is the best source of inspiration when it comes to rhythmic development. I mean check out some of the stuff they've got going in Cuban, Latin, Flamenco, Indian, etc. - it's mad.
You might want to have a look at this article, "Mastering Odd, Complex Time Signatures And Rhythms": http://www.guitar9.com/columnist353.html
Might open up a few ideas for you :).

Oarsum. Something ike that site is exactly what I've been looking for, thanks Trea :).

Do you, or anyone else, have any recomendations on music to listen to to be exposed to mroe extreme time signatures and rythms and what not?

[Trigger_003]

No problem... Alive
/wants to call you by name

Meshuggah? Gav's compositions?

Jazz, world music and prog. metal are probably going to be your best areas to look in (not trying to generalise genres too much, but you know what I mean).

If you're really looking into rhythmic development, I've found the most effective way so far is to check out some drumming websites and work on applying what you learn there to guitar.
Start focusing on the rhythms drummers use and mimmic them - even if you're just playing the one note. Over time you can get used to varying the notes while applying the rhythms.
The guy who wrote that article says somewhere else:
"Dance group can be helpful for both finding recordings of music and learning the rhythmic elements of the music more completely. Learning different basic 'oro' of Bulgaria and Macedonia was a great way to learn some simple approaches to the odd time signatures of the associated music (5/8, 7/16, 9/8, 11/16, 25/8, 29/8 etc.)" Might be worth googling into (I'll let you read up on it, you don't have to dance it :p).

Work on syncopation a lot, it'll help considerably. I'll together a .ptb of syncopation exercises for you tonight.

A lot of music with djembes and all those other types of African drums are really good to listen to for ideas. Have a listen to the start of (at least) http://media.putfile.com/Incubus---4th-Movement-of-the-Odyssey.
Mahavishnu and Shakti have some interesting rhythmic concepts.

I also have a 141 page pdf on flamenco rhythms... if you've got a few days of nothing in which to read it. Haha, I still haven't managed to read it all yet. You can just scan through it and look at certain sections like polyrhythms and stuff that you're interested in (like I've been doing).

Yer... let me know.
Man I need msn back!

[Whale and Wasp]

pretend that youre trying to "sing" on the guitar, like make melody for lyrics

[Diatonic Dissonance™]

No problem... Alive
/wants to call you by name

Meshuggah? Gav's compositions?

XD!!!

[Leukeh]

Why oh why does Trea not have stars?

That was amazing, I wish I had your knowledge:lol:

/saves copy

[Alive]

lulz, Ma' name's Simon. Nice to meet you :wave:

And I was actually going to put something along the lines of 'And Gavin, no Meshuggah." I don't really know why I don't like them, apart from a couple of songs. I was still going to see them 'til they canceled their tour :angry:

Gav, if you want to link me to your music I'd love to take a listen to it.


Trea ~ I have a friend who plays djembe (and tabla), so I'll have to talk to him. If you could send me that pdf it'd be great, but is it an actual book I could purchase?

[Trigger_003]

Why oh why does Trea not have stars?

That was amazing, I wish I had your knowledge

/saves copy
Hehe, twice in a week. Glad you liked it Leukeh.

Lawlz, I figured it's Simon :p
Not everyone wants their names plastered across the board, that's all.

Awesome, he should be able to teach you a few rhythms and stuff :).
I had a sudden party come out of nowhere last night so I'll do that syncopation thing after breakfast. It'll annoy the hell out of you, I promise ;).

I don't think it is out as a book... I think it would be hard to find if it was. I'll just email it to you (if anyone else wants a copy too, I'll upload it then).

[Trigger_003]

Yes...
After. Breakfast.

>_<

Heh, sorry, it's kinda rushed... but it'll give you an idea anyway.
http://s29.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=22DDF4FFX8B7023DEELQGPFP8J

That particular ptab wasn't working on my server for some reason... came up as a whole heap of code...

[scottkdash]

artistwise i'd go and get into dave gilmour of pink floyd. stuff like the solo in "another brick in the wall" will teach you about the importance of note economy, the concept of silence in music (which may just be the most important yet at the same time most underrated theory in music history) and expression

[Axem Black]

Learn these basic pentatonic shapes, once you know them well, you can use them all in a solo and it'll sound good! These are for the key of G, but for different keys, move the shapes up and down the fretboard respectively.

http://www.cyberfret.com/scales/minor-pentatonic/images/sc_min_pent_g1_fingers.gif

http://www.cyberfret.com/scales/minor-pentatonic/images/sc_min_pent_g2_fingers.gif

http://www.cyberfret.com/scales/minor-pentatonic/images/sc_min_pent_g3_fingers.gif

http://www.cyberfret.com/scales/minor-pentatonic/images/sc_min_pent_g4_fingers.gif

http://www.cyberfret.com/scales/minor-pentatonic/images/sc_min_pent_g5_fingers.gif


(http://www.cyberfret.com/scales/minor-pentatonic/index.php)

[Timm]

Most people are preoccupied with the belief that you have to take up the entire time with playing. They fail to realise that a well executed rest can have a tremendous effect on your audience, and also gives you a "break" before you move into your next phrase.

a rest also gives your next phrase more punch so to speak

[Trigger_003]

Hey, Simon... did you get all the syncopation/flamenco stuff?

[Alive]

Yeah, sorry about the wait. I've been playing the top few but the bottom one is really hard at faster speeds. I can tap out the rythm of it, but I can't play it accuratly.

Any tips apart from to slow down?

[Mike7771]

try my site http://www.guitarknowledgenet.com

[judge_gideon]

Hey Mike7771,

Why not post some of your guitar knowledge here in the forum? We need more good content :D

Don't send people away - bring your tools here man.

[Trigger_003]

Besides changing your aproach to them, slowing them down is just about the only thing you can do.
How are you counting them - if you are counting them?

Haha I remember someone saying it's easier to play in 16ths (the other suggested options were 8ths and quarters) :rolleyes:.

[Alive]

I'm counting it as 1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a.

Don't worry about it for the next few days, it's 2am on Christmas Eve and I just had to lug my huge friend home, so I'm pretty tired.

Merry christmas Trea, Gav and Greg, and all the rest of you'ns hanging out here ;D