improvizing

GerBear

Hey Michael,
I've been really wanting to improve my ability to play over chord changes; one of my biggest problems is improvising. It's difficult enough to visualize each of the arpeggios in the chord progression, but it seems that, more often than not, an alternate arpeggio is used instead of the one for the chord you're playing over (for instance, a minor 7b5 arp. a minor 3rd below a minor chord, or a minor 7b5 arp. a major 3rd above a major chord). Of course, I could just play in the general key center and it would probably take care of all the changes, but that doesn't make for very good playing!
Thanks for any advice you may have
Garrett

MichaelHorowitz

What all great improvisers do is create and/or steal as many "patterns," "licks," "phrases," "ideas," or whatever you want to call them. It's simply not possible to truly improvise at the eight note level when playing medium to fast tempos. So you have to be prepared by studying all the common chord progressions (i.e. blues, ii-V-I, rhythm changes, etc.) Create or steal as many ideas as you can and then mix up them up during your solo. You can also play spontaneous melodic ideas too, but it's pretty hard to come up with anything faster then half notes at the faster tempos.

When you're practicing at home you have time to think about all the different arpeggios and scales that are possible over a give chord progression. But when you're performing you really don't have time to worry about that. You need think about all that before hand.

Capice?

Good luck!

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