Music Construction

[Psycho]

I recently realised the biggest problem as a guitar player.

I couldn't improvise at all! I don't even understand how music is constructed in the first place. I was at a friend's place (who's a keyboard player) He wanted a little jam and I was completely lost.

All I know is the pentatonic minor and nothing else. How is music constructed and what do you think I should work on right now to improve my understanding of guitar playing?

[Fred5]

Music exists in time. It's subdivided into measures (or bars, same thing). Those are grouped
together forming sections of music and those sections form a more or less complete piece of music.

Another way of looking at it is that music consists of rhythm, melody and harmony. Those
are the things you need knowledge about and skills
to perform if you want to play.

Man! It's a HUGE question but it's all explained
and covered in MUSIC THEORY. Take a look at a piano keyboard, those white keys? That's the
C Major scale. It's seven notes repeated in octaves. They have names. Their names are, ascending: C,D,E,F,G,A,B .

End of your first theory lesson.

[StratKat]

Easiest way to explain jammin is by understanding progressions.

A progression in music is a set of simple rules that tell you what chords will be in the song and where they are going to pop up. There are a series of set progressions like the I-IV-V for example that use the first, fourth, and fith chords of whatever key signature you use. So if say you were playiing a song in the key of C and you substitue numbers for note names you get:

C=1=I
D=2=II
E=3=III
F=4=IV
G=5=V
A=6=VI
B=7=VII
C=8=VIII (or Octave)

So the chords in the song using a I,!V,V progression would be a "C" , an "F", and a "G".

There are alot fo different progressions out there. Alot of songs can be deciphered with them. The more you learn about progressions the easier it is to hear where a guitarist or vocalist is 'going' and know what chords to play ahead of them.

I have more of this concept in my free lessons below if interested.

[ninjaaron]

visit my soloing thread this will help you jam in some more basic type situations