[Drew]

Originally Posted by ArchAngel1024

I've become good at improv in a few scales (blues m, pentatonic M/m, ionian, aeolian, some harmonic m) my only issues now are relating lead to melody (playing in the V works well) and writing a few more songs before June.

I know this is a month old, give or take, but there's a dangerous hangup right there.

Don't think of it as "improvising in the blues minor," or "improvising in the harmonic minor," or whatever. Instead, learn to think of it as "improvising over such-and-such a set of chord changes." There's no reason you have to stay in the same scale for an entire solo, or an entire passage, or even an entire phrase, and arguably half the battle of improvising is learning how to artfully add tones outside the obvious scale choice too the mix and still make it work.

so, learn your scales cold, learn to play them across the entire neck without even having to think about them, and then forget them. ditto with arpeggios, not just sweep arpeggio shapes, but the actual series of chord tones. And then when you come to a solo section, throw whatever works at it - a particular scale, a couple passing tones from another scale that also works, a couple chromatic passing notes if they fit, maybe an arpeggio based lick or two, whatever. Don't think of them as rigidly defined scales, think of them as all part of the same collection of notes that may or may not be appropriate in a context.

I'd really be curious to hear a clip of your improv playing.

[telecaster90]

Originally Posted by stubhead

I had posted a link to an amazing site with thousands of streaming concerts:
SugarMegs Streaming Server
Somebody posted that "there wasn't enough metal" - to be able to bypass that much music is no way to get better. There's dozens of Mahavishnu Orchestra & Zappa, Zeppelin & Mountain concerts - without those guys there wouldn't be metal as you know it, as Jeff Beck said recently nobody has ever gotten better than McLaughlin was back then. Check out MahavishnuOrchestra1972-05-15 and 1972-11-09 if you want to find out why metal bands still play in odd meters 35 years later.

This link FTW

[distressed_romeo]

Originally Posted by Drew

I know this is a month old, give or take, but there's a dangerous hangup right there.

Don't think of it as "improvising in the blues minor," or "improvising in the harmonic minor," or whatever. Instead, learn to think of it as "improvising over such-and-such a set of chord changes." There's no reason you have to stay in the same scale for an entire solo, or an entire passage, or even an entire phrase, and arguably half the battle of improvising is learning how to artfully add tones outside the obvious scale choice too the mix and still make it work.

so, learn your scales cold, learn to play them across the entire neck without even having to think about them, and then forget them. ditto with arpeggios, not just sweep arpeggio shapes, but the actual series of chord tones. And then when you come to a solo section, throw whatever works at it - a particular scale, a couple passing tones from another scale that also works, a couple chromatic passing notes if they fit, maybe an arpeggio based lick or two, whatever. Don't think of them as rigidly defined scales, think of them as all part of the same collection of notes that may or may not be appropriate in a context.

I'd really be curious to hear a clip of your improv playing.

Absolutely awesome advice. This is exactly how most great improvisors seem to think when they're playing. It might sound confusing, but if you're like me there'll come a point where it just seems to click, and scales and modes become just one piece of the puzzle. I don't pretend to be a great soloist, but one of the major stepping stones in my own playing was when I started to think about improvising in this way.

Drew, you and I really have to jam together some time in the future.

[Drew]

I'll probably let you down, dude.

Seriously though, I don't think too much about scales anymore when I solo. I probably run the risk of sounding repetitive because of this, but...

That was the big thing I took away from taking lessons in college, though - really, there's no reason you can't play anything over anything as long as you can find a way to resolve it.

[Maniacal]

It would be great not to think about scales and shapes when I improvise but I just cant.

I think training as a "shredder" has not done me any favors regarding the neck. Especially 3 note per string sequences.

[TemjinStrife]

I come from a classical cello background, so it's very interesting attempting to transfer the lyrical sounds I'm based in to the very percussive guitar, and vice versa. The phrasing and scalar outlook granted by that background has been both a blessing and a curse throughout my own experience with the instrument, as I do tend to focus more on pedal tones, melodic lines, and single-note rhythm bits instead of chordal riffs.

This totally hoses me for learning blues stuff like La Grange, for example... but the sound is very cool to me and despite my difficulties I hope to be able to grab onto some of the "feel."

[Bound]

Originally Posted by Drew

I'll probably let you down, dude.

Seriously though, I don't think too much about scales anymore when I solo. I probably run the risk of sounding repetitive because of this, but...

That was the big thing I took away from taking lessons in college, though - really, there's no reason you can't play anything over anything as long as you can find a way to resolve it.

I have problems with this and wish I could do it more proficiently. Lately I've stopped trying to make stuff more complex and just sit down with simple 3 chord riffs and improv over them mixing different scales and chromatics.. but I still struggle with it.

[Blackrg]

Originally Posted by telecaster90

This link FTW

This thread should be sticky

stub, romeo, drew

[stubhead]

I don't want to repeat, so I'll try to keep to a few short points.

1) If you're tapping and sweeping away, there's an extremely high likelihood you're not actually thinking about a melody and then playing it. Can you sing your taps? Can your (potential) groupies hum along? Yeah right, you only want to play for other shredders anyway....

2) Many, many great guitarists are good drummers too and think rhythmically. Paul Gilbert, Eddie Van Halen, John McLaughlin, Jeff Beck, Steve Vai, they're all capable of employment as a professional drummer. In his videos Gilbert especially talks about approaching a solo like a drummer, and his method of alternating a few bars of rhythm with a few bars of a fill is a good way in. Instead of another guitar get a $40 Ebay drum machine and learn how to program it; learn what a "Mersey beat" is, learn what a "train beat" is, learn what a samba is and where the beats are, then play them on your guitar. It usually works to play the bass drum on a low string, snare in the middle, and hihat beats on an upper string.

: : The Drummer's Bible : : <-great book, here.

To play scratch rhythms, get a digital delay/modeler that gives you a few seconds looping time and set up a looper. It's as easy as splitting your signal into two lines: one into a delay, and one into another channel. A $4 Radio Shack Y-adapter.... Record a rhythm into your loop, then kill the signal going to the delay (with a volume pedal, another stompbox set to send no signal etc.) then play over your scratch rhythm loop.

3) Listen to how infrequently great guitarists are actually playing flowing, legato lines - 30%? Certainly not half the time.... It's a nice effect, but if your playing is just drooling on, and on, and on, all the time, try hocking up a nice big solid goober and see just how fun it is to splatter!

$) Write a fucking song, O.K.? The actual career opportunities for wanking in front of a webcam are maybe not quite as good as they look.

[Drew]

Good advice, Stubhead!

Honestly, trying to think about a solo rhythmically is awesome advice, and whenver I really focus on it I usually play leads in a totoally different way than I might otherwise.