Members brywool Posted November 10, 2009 Members Posted November 10, 2009 Hi-I've never posted here, so please excuse the lameness of my question...BUT I've played guitar for 35 years, mostly by ear. I don't read music, but I know what chords are where on my guitar. I can play a blues scale and improv if it's a blues progression. I'm a great rhythm player. But, for the life of me, I cannot improv over just any chords without working out a complete solo, which really isn't improv at all. HOW does one get there? Say you have a progression of Em C G C Am E. How the heck would one improv over that? How would you KNOW where to go?It's also a question of what NOT to play. I know, dumb question for all of you that already know this, but it's super difficult for me to figure out.
Members jeremy_green Posted November 10, 2009 Members Posted November 10, 2009 Not a dumb question at all man! If you look at most of the posts here they centre around learning how to solo. It IS hard so no shame there. The best advice I can give you is to learn a whole bunch of solos that you like. From this you learn what others do and therefore can start to make decisions about your options. Start there. Learn 10 guitar solos note for note. Pick easy ones if you need. Secondly spend time learning arpeggios for those chords. So play an Emin arp over the Emin, Then a Cmaj arp over the C etc. Just get the feel for following the progression around. Doesnt need to be tricky just listen and follow. What you are after here is Chord tone recognition and general fretboard awareness. The easy answer is use your Amin pentatonic shape and start ripping - what would you play you ask? This is where the learn other solos comes in. Soloing is all about learning vocabulary - start learning how the greats express themselves and all of a sudden you will start having ideas. Good Luck!
Members brywool Posted November 10, 2009 Author Members Posted November 10, 2009 Thanks. My biggest worry is hitting out of key stuff. I'll never be a FAST player, but avoiding clams is what I'm after for sure.
Members jeremy_green Posted November 10, 2009 Members Posted November 10, 2009 The easiest way to be sure is to figure out what notes are in each chord. Then just play off those notes - not JUST those notes but off and around them. This is where the arpeggios are great tools - they are your safe notes. Start and stop on those and it will always be "in"
Members meganutt7 Posted November 10, 2009 Members Posted November 10, 2009 I agree with Jeremy... if you liste nt oa player like David Gilmour from Pink Floyd.... The reason SO MANY PEOPLE (musicians and non-musicians alike) think he rules is because (in large part) he plays chord tones over almost EVERY SOLO HE PLAYS!!! all those super choice notes are all chord tones... He just knows how to hit them.... Analyze a solo like the one in the song "Time"... he plays an F#m pentatonic scale and OCCASIONALLY adds the 9th (G#)... BUT, he is not looking at it as just an F#m pentatonic scale... He sees where the chord tones for each chord in the progression are WITHIN THAT SCALE... That is the genius. Not thinking there is a magic scale that will make everything sound awesome.. Realizing instead that in every scale you have notes that have the ability to be perfect at one time or another. Know what I mean, Jellybean?? www.myspace.com/dannyhayounakaprofessorparkinson
Members Virgman Posted November 10, 2009 Members Posted November 10, 2009 I disagree with Jeremy. You are right. It is a really dumb question. Phew! Dumb-dumb. I just wrote a thread on this. Doesn't anyone read my threads? I'm taking my ball and going home... Or maybe go over to the Fender Forum where they will appreciate me. Check it out: http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showthread.php?t=2482509
Members brywool Posted November 10, 2009 Author Members Posted November 10, 2009 yeah, I checked that out, but as I said, I don't know theory so it's a bit lost on me. I guess that's the problem. Funny though, I see peeps do this all the time and I know they don't read or know the theory. They just do it somehow. Time to get into some lessons.
Members meganutt7 Posted November 10, 2009 Members Posted November 10, 2009 I read it, Virgman... Well written post. But I disagree. j/k... Yeah, I am being a jackass.... But it is a great post relating to playnig over changes, though it seems to me that brywool may not have that terminology down and asked a question about improvising solos... It's all semantics, but I can understand that oversight. Peace, www.myspace.com/dannyhayounakaprofessorparkinson
Members Virgman Posted November 10, 2009 Members Posted November 10, 2009 No problemo. Sorry about that.
Members girevik Posted November 10, 2009 Members Posted November 10, 2009 I think one reason I've been able to make progress is I quickly lost the fear of making mistakes. It's like when I finally learned how to ice skate - more recent than I care to admit, btw. I had a fear of falling that impeded my progress. After I fell several times on the ice (and ignored the kids and others laughing) - mostly forward but a couple of times backwards onto my butt - I lost my fear of falling and got more and more comfortable with moving around without hanging onto something all the time.
Members meganutt7 Posted November 10, 2009 Members Posted November 10, 2009 Girevik is onto a HUGE thing here.. Miles said "Fear not mistakes.. There are none..." he also said "If you're not making mistakes, you're probably not having very much fun..." Now, while these two quotes are sort of contradictory, they both illustratea great attitude to have... A mistake is just the opportunity for a recovery. It injects a bit of chance and excitement into things... Recovering from a mistake is the artform us improvisors need to get into more than anything. Mistakes are, more often than not, unavoidable and inescapable. Learning to deal with them on the spot, in the moment, is crucial. Regardless of all that, knowledge of music theory or an ASTOUNDING ear and MUSICAL MEMORY are pretty much REQUIRED to be able to competently and capably JAM over things with little effort.... Or YEARS of practice and meandering in the dark... I highly recommend trying to develop your ear, memory and your theoretical knowledge. It's easy enough to do all three... It just takes time and a bit of effort. It's worth it though, dontcha think?? www.myspace.com/dannyhayounakaprofessorparkinson
Members mosiddiqi Posted November 10, 2009 Members Posted November 10, 2009 Some great advice here as usual...I would add that apart from the notes themselves..don't forget to work on phrasing, bends, vibrato, slides, articulation..there are a million ways to play one note...and yes, silences. That's the area where you are going to sound like "you" and nobody else.
Members 3shiftgtr Posted November 11, 2009 Members Posted November 11, 2009 I think one reason I've been able to make progress is I quickly lost the fear of making mistakes.It's like when I finally learned how to ice skate - more recent than I care to admit, btw. I had a fear of falling that impeded my progress. After I fell several times on the ice (and ignored the kids and others laughing) - mostly forward but a couple of times backwards onto my butt - I lost my fear of falling and got more and more comfortable with moving around without hanging onto something all the time. Ol' griv got it here...the OP said he was afraid of playing bad stuff. Well.... I say embrace your crud! You gotta play A BUNCH of bad phrases before you can find the good ones. View your time with a scale and a chord progression as lab time. No one is paying you or watching you. It is you and the music. Take a scale fragment of say 3 or 4 notes, and make 'em work. Take your time. If you play for 3 minutes and come up with only one good phrase.....GOOD FOR YOU!!! That is in NOT a fail in any way. That is SUCCESS!!! You nailed one. Now go find another one. And while you are doing this, form opinions. When you like something, remember WHAT is was about the phrase you liked. That's how you create your own style. Remember, if you are new to it, no one learns a scale and instantly can use it in a deep way. It takes time. So jam, work, listen, jam summo, listen, remember, think, jam, and jam sommo, and then...jam. And let the bad notes just fall away. They will get fewer and fewer in time. "If you ain't hittin' any bad notes, you ain't tryin'." Miles Davis
Members Jasco Posted November 11, 2009 Members Posted November 11, 2009 The best advice I can give you is to learn a whole bunch of solos that you like. From this you learn what others do and therefore can start to make decisions about your options. Start there. Learn 10 guitar solos note for note. Pick easy ones if you need.Soloing is all about learning vocabulary - start learning how the greats express themselves and all of a sudden you will start having ideas. Jeremy nailed it, as usual. I'd add that when learning other people's solos, be sure to analyze them so you know where their note choices are coming from. Also, break the solos into shorter phrases, and practice playing these short phrases in all different keys, different grooves, and different areas on the fretboard. Being able to play one phrase a hundred different ways is more useful than being able to play a hundred different phrases one way each, in my opinion. Girevik's advice about not fearing mistakes is great also.
Members b_f_c_99 Posted November 11, 2009 Members Posted November 11, 2009 A user named 'rotren' made a great post on just playing 3 notes for each 16 bars. It was aimed at blues but you could apply it to anything really. Mostly I'm not a huge lets wank out a guitar solo for 3 minutes type of guy. Frankly unless your on a very high level (jimmy crespo and neil geraldo are fantastic players) it is just annoying noise. Unless a guitar solo moves the song or takes it in a different direction its just a bunch of noise. The current hiphop/rap musichas simply replaced the guitar solo with the girl that sings interlude, or even worse, the rap 'interlude'. In country music that I call Nashville pop they are playing 80's pop metal but instead of guitar solos you get steel guitar, and instead of synths or keyboards you get banjo. Well that and a twangy voice instead of some guy screaming in spandex.
Members TrickyBoy Posted November 12, 2009 Members Posted November 12, 2009 A user named 'rotren' made a great post on just playing 3 notes for each 16 bars. It was aimed at blues but you could apply it to anything really. Mostly I'm not a huge lets wank out a guitar solo for 3 minutes type of guy. Frankly unless your on a very high level (jimmy crespo and neil geraldo are fantastic players) it is just annoying noise. Unless a guitar solo moves the song or takes it in a different direction its just a bunch of noise. The current hiphop/rap musichas simply replaced the guitar solo with the girl that sings interlude, or even worse, the rap 'interlude'. In country music that I call Nashville pop they are playing 80's pop metal but instead of guitar solos you get steel guitar, and instead of synths or keyboards you get banjo. Well that and a twangy voice instead of some guy screaming in spandex. I was thinking of that identical exercise (the 3 note solo) - GREAT place to start.
Members 3shiftgtr Posted November 12, 2009 Members Posted November 12, 2009 A user named 'rotren' made a great post on just playing 3 notes for each 16 bars. It was aimed at blues but you could apply it to anything really. Mostly I'm not a huge lets wank out a guitar solo for 3 minutes type of guy. Frankly unless your on a very high level (jimmy crespo and neil geraldo are fantastic players) it is just annoying noise. Unless a guitar solo moves the song or takes it in a different direction its just a bunch of noise. The current hiphop/rap musichas simply replaced the guitar solo with the girl that sings interlude, or even worse, the rap 'interlude'. In country music that I call Nashville pop they are playing 80's pop metal but instead of guitar solos you get steel guitar, and instead of synths or keyboards you get banjo. Well that and a twangy voice instead of some guy screaming in spandex. Yeah, that'll help. It takes a lot of work to learn how to make 3 notes in 16 bars work. Your desire to let us know hatred of solos (annoying noise) reveals your lack of understanding of what the OP was asking.
Members Frankenstrat86 Posted November 12, 2009 Members Posted November 12, 2009 One thing I'm curious about brywool is how well do you know the fretboard? As in do you know where notes are easily? Because you asked how do you know where to go with that progression. As soon as I looked at it I thought Cmaj/Am Depending on your style that you're trying to develop you can use an Am pentatonic and fill in the gaps with notes from the Cmaj scale which would just make it an A natural minor anyway. Whenever I'm in a certain song key I always tell myself everything in this key is natural except for.... and I find it very easy to find my way like that. Learning other solos like others said and allowing mistakes to come through is a great way to go about it as well. Believe it or not you can practice improvising (strange I know) and as long as you're having fun your brain will learn.
Members axegrinder77 Posted November 12, 2009 Members Posted November 12, 2009 I agree with Jeremy... if you liste nt oa player like David Gilmour from Pink Floyd.... The reason SO MANY PEOPLE (musicians and non-musicians alike) think he rules is because (in large part) he plays chord tones over almost EVERY SOLO HE PLAYS!!! all those super choice notes are all chord tones... He just knows how to hit them.... Analyze a solo like the one in the song "Time"... he plays an F#m pentatonic scale and OCCASIONALLY adds the 9th (G#)... BUT, he is not looking at it as just an F#m pentatonic scale... He sees where the chord tones for each chord in the progression are WITHIN THAT SCALE... That is the genius. Not thinking there is a magic scale that will make everything sound awesome.. Realizing instead that in every scale you have notes that have the ability to be perfect at one time or another. Know what I mean, Jellybean?? www.myspace.com/dannyhayounakaprofessorparkinson I {censored}ing LOVE David Gilmour's playing... I'm gonna goes studies me ups some chord tones... seriously, that should keep me busy for a while.
Members jeremy_green Posted November 12, 2009 Members Posted November 12, 2009 Awareness of the rhythm chord changes is EVERYTHING in a solo. Whether you acknowledge them by ear (the greats) or by plan the laws of music dictate these to be the cleanest most ear pleasing resolution points. Learn the changes - only then can you choose to ignore them IMO
Members brywool Posted November 12, 2009 Author Members Posted November 12, 2009 Okay, so playing the notes of the chord in different neck positions is opening my eyes a lot and making me hit less out of key notes. Freakin... DUH. Geez, took years for me to figure that out? Holy Crap.
Members jeremy_green Posted November 12, 2009 Members Posted November 12, 2009 It is amazing how long it took me to truly understand that to learn how to play lead - you really must need to learn chords. I have said this on here a few times but never really fleshed out what I mean so let me try. Even though licks are played one note at a time those licks imply chords. Take this for example the first part is a typical lick - but the notes spell out a simple A chord. The second half by sliding the one note back now you are playing a minor chord. Play the lick then the chords at the end you will see they sound essentially the same. Or a lick like this: This implies a sus2 chord etc So the deeper your understanding of chords and what chords can be substituted for one another or are complimentary the more ideas you can use for solos - all using chord tones as a skeleton Here is another line that basically weaves in and out between the chords C and G. This line could work over either of those chords and their common substitutions. It just goes C,G,C,G,C (bend up to end on the 3rd of the C chord - nice and safe-like) I kept these straight to illustrate my point but you can spice this up with bends/slides/chromatics etc. Chords and Lead playing are one and the same. Every time you learn a new chord you just learned a new arpeggio. Learn a new chord in several places on the neck and then string them together as single notes - WHAM! Multi-octave Arpeggio! Sweep it rip it do whatever the hell you want with it. Now take this approach and follow a chord progression along - I think you will be surprised at how familiar it sounds. Now go and analyze some of your favourite solos "oh! so THAT's what is going on!" you just found the grail! :thu:
Members Virgman Posted November 12, 2009 Members Posted November 12, 2009 Am pent seems to work. That's too simple. It's gotta be harder than that!
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