progress further on improvisation

kevingcox

I think you are both right in that both of those exercises are useful.

Find as many places that you can use the lick as possible.

Jon

An Am lick will work every other minor chord in the tune. It can also work over some Major chords (ie A minor is almost the same as C6). It can also work over some Dominant 7 chords (ie Am licks work over D7, Gm over C7, Ebm over Ab7 etc).

So you can use the one lick you're practicing over almost the whole tune. Gonzalo's video lesson at DC music explains this well I think.

Jon

arjr

Thank you Jon, I'm not to sharp on chord theory
but it's starting to make sense with your explanation.
Thank you, I will definitely try this!!!!



Angelo

W.B

How are u guys progressing ? Im learning the 3 basic major and 3 basic minor arpeggio shapes trying to play the same lick and going with the changes helps me allot to learn locating and remembering the arp shapes hope this is the best way to learn or do I miss something ?

Pierrot

Coming from a classical background, iniially, I foud it very difficult to get my head round any kind of improvisation. Being told to learn scales didn't tell me what to do with them. What helped a lot was doing a kind of pattern playing, where you practice eg

doubled up notes:
aa bb cc
(also tripled and quadrupld up and in various rhythms)

terraces
a b c
b c d
c d e

trill like figures
a b a
b c b
c d c

double stops in 4ths 5ths and flat 5ths

also patterns where every second (or whatever) note is articualted
differently, legato or staccato. or slid, etc.

and so on. All up and down of course. My a's b's and c's shouldn't be read as the literal
notes, they just represent the first, second etc note of you scale or arp.

Of course as an improviser you don't want to *sound* as if you are just playing mathematical
patterns; this is a practice technique intended to help you move on to real improvisation.
These patters are building block of melody. If you think about, any sequence of 3 or 4 notes HAS
to conform to some pattern, such as up-up-same of same-down-same.

--Pierrot the mad professor.

dennis

with all due respect, that is precisely the thing to avoid doing!

Classical guitar is classical guitar, and it is world's apart from non-classical guitar... there may be some crossover material here and there, but in general, it's just not the same isntrument...

Practicing those kinds of exercises are great for certain classical guitar techniques, but it has nothing to do with non-classical guitar (Be it gypsy jazz, jazz, rock, blues, etc...)

For Gypsy Jazz, it's all about vocabolary (self explanatory), harmony (voice leading and arpeggios, enclosures, embellishments), phrasing (short phrase, long phrase, starting on different beats, syncopation)

Vocabulary = licks that you invent yourself, or easier, that you steal from others (what most people do)
harmony = being able to play proper rhythm with good chords, being able to figure out all sorts of chords across the fretboard, adding extensions, arpeggios

phrasing - timing, syncopation, length of phrase, anticipating the changes by starting before the beat, etc...

Those are the 3 essential things to work on....

Pierrot

With the greatest respect

..these aren't "classical exercises".

...I didn't say ignore harmony, rhythm, phrasing and syncopation.

..what this is about is answering the question "how do i improvise" separately from the question "OK, I can improvise, how do I improvise like Django". We solve problems by breaking them down into components which can then be re assmebled.

...what this is about unpacking the instruction to arrive at "licks you develop yourself". Any "lick you develop yourself" will be stitched out of basic melodic patterns just because any melody whatsoever will be -- it's maths. I nowhere said that classical scales had to be used instead of jazz scales or arps. "up-up-down up-up-down" is a pattern that can apply to any number of concrete harmonies. I never said that every note has to be unswung and unsyncopated.

When I started learning jazz, I found the instruction "now just improvise on this scale" useless to my classically-conditioned brain. Improvise what? It's not that you don't need to do all those other things you mentioned. it is that they don't solve the problem that the OP was stuck on: the problem of what note do I play next? (And, no I am not saying that it is a rigid deterministic formula either. I am saying
that if you have vocabulary of patterns it becomes easy to fluidly and spontaneously combine them).

anthon_74

At risk of sounding insulting, let me just say that if you're learning improvisation in GENERAL, then starting with Jazz is like trying to play your first ever recital in carnegie hall... In Jazz improv, you not only have to "make it up as you go", but you also have to keep track of chord changes.

If you're just trying to get the hang of improvising in general, it may behoove you to spend a little time with a pentatonic scale, and a nice 12 bar blues rhythm track. Then you can use all of those patterns you spoke of (3 sequences, double notes, etc).

Of course, the problem there is you have to adjust to following chord changes later. But since you have a classical musicians knowledge of the fret board, that may be easier for you (I still have trouble knowing what note I'm playing if I'm high on the fret board on the G,or B string!)

It's just a thought. I frankly, can't IMAGINE having tried to learn to improvise on the guitar STARTING with Gypsy Jazz or any other jazz for that matter.

Cheers!

Bones

Hi Stuart,

That is great advice.

What is meant by implied key changes?

Thanks

jlander9

Hi all,
This by far has been one of the best threads I've read. I think the advise is great all around. I am new to Gj and have been working on Arrpeggios, Picking, Chords, Strumming and learning a solo. I'm am approaching the arpeggio patterns first. I figure I'd learn the hell out of the patterns and roots. Then I will learn what can be done to the apreggio. Yet, because it's a slow process I feel maybe i'm doing something wrong. What do you folks think, am I on the right track? PS. just ordered An Altamira M10!!!!, My Ibanez acoustic was taking too much of a beating!.