how to solo and improvise

I don't know how to use scales

can someone give me some pointers?

I am trying to just fill in some licks on a live version of Knockin On Heavens door by Eric Burdon , Rory Gallagher and David Lindley. I can do some licks but running out of ideas.

Thx enig

"How to solo and improvise" - quite possibly the biggest single open-ended subject in music today.

Ok - I assume you don't want to play like Allan Holdsworth (master improvisor) over your "Knockin' on Heaven's" door song and want something more like 70s era Clapton (noobs look it up - he has a nice version).

Okay - a bit of Googling revealed the following chord chart for Clapton version (sorry - i don't know the Burdon version, but I assume the chords are the same) -


http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/c/clapton_eric/knockin_on_heavens_door_crd.htm

So the chords are G D C Am, which means the key is G. (All chords in G would be G Am Bm C D Em F#Dim).

So, I make the assumption that you want to play a conventional solo with a matching scale in the same key and nothing too fancy at this juncture like outside notes, or changing modes on each chord etc.. which is a bit more advanced.

So, here's my recommendation:

Learn the G Major scale. G A B C D E F#.
Start by playing notes from this scale along to the music. Try to break up your lines into phrases - in other words, don't just play one continuous never-ending line (unless that's the effect you're going for). Clapton, for example plays short little bursts of notes, say, from 2 notes in a lick, up to between 6-12 notes. Now, the hardest part is this - you'll notice that when you end your phrases, some of the notes either 'work' or they don't although all the notes are harmonically valid within the key, at certain points, some of them sound better. The ones that sound better are the notes that correspond to the notes of the chord which is underneath at any time so:
G Major = G B D, so ending your lick on one of these notes (especially the 1st) will sound 'strong'.
D Major = D F# A, likewise
C Major = C E G, likewise
Am = A C E, likewise.

Now, how do you do this? Well one way is to memorise all the notes on the entire fretboard - good luck, see you in 20 years.

The other way is to memorise chord shapes along the fretboard (easier, but still several years of effort). So, you need to eventually learn, for example, all the different shapes of G Major over the entire neck in thr long run.

If this sounds too daunting, for your current needs, i suggest picking a couple of key positions and concentrating on knowing the chord shapes in those.

E.g.

5th position, know an Am Chord and some of the notes of C Major
12th Position, know a G Major and a D shape.

Of course, you can choose whatever/wherever.

To simplify things slightly more, superimpose the pentatonic shapes over each chord as it passes, and attempting to gravitate your lick end notes to the chord tones, so

G Major - play a G Major Pentatonic in the 12th position, and when the next bar comes and it changes to D, then finsih your lick on one of the D chord tones.

etc.

This is one way of soloing and applying scales to chords. I can't say I'm particularly good at this myself because I don't practice it enough. Like anything you need to do it a lot, but then, therein lies the fun. I've been trying to get this right for the best part of 20 years and I'm still having fun.

Happy journey!

ok its getting clearer since u mentioned the part about

"G Major - play a G Major Pentatonic in the 12th position, and when the next bar comes and it changes to D, then finsih your lick on one of the D chord tones. "

I have memmorised the entire fretboard...will this help?

whoa! great post! *points upwards*

throw out the thinking part and start playing with your heart (also an excuse for me not understanding a shit bout the earlier post hahaha) \m/

You should always play with just your heart like what dhalif said, only then will the music have soul in it... but like what he said too, you wouldn't know theory then! :wink:

Try to learn some theory, it can help you immensely, especially when it comes to jazz and soloing over complicated chords...G13(#11) kind of stuff... Theory is something that always helps the musician until the musician starts to compose with his brain... souless music is always boring, and makes the solos machanical.

Another way to play solos is to use your voice... hum or go lalala over the chords... improvise a humming solo, then play it out on the guitar... very easy to get started with this but the biggest problem is that you'd tend to play the same thing over and over and over again...

Always remember that when you solo, its really you there, taking out something from inside you, to tell the listener a story or bring the listener on an emotional voyage...
And be open minded when you solo... Never get boxed up playing the same licks over and over... Or even insisting that pentatonics must be played in a certain way... Experiment and challenge yourself to be different every time you play every day...
Lastly, practice like hell. I sit at home for hours doodling on my guitar... set aside some time to practice everyday and get a good practice schedule... skill doesn't drop out of the sky, if you don't practice, you'd never get to be good.

Shred on brother... when you start to totally kick ass in your solos, rem us in the forums who helped jump start ya!

whoah! I stared at the major and minor peta scale and i can solo and insert stuff! Thx guys! This is a kickoff!! 8)

just wondering who does solo here with little or no knowledge of scales?
i tried using scales , pentatonic ones, then the minor ones. Found it very restrictive..so in the end i didnt use them at all. As long as it sounds right together with the chords its ok?

ShredCow said:

Another way to play solos is to use your voice... hum or go lalala over the chords... improvise a humming solo, then play it out on the guitar... very easy to get started with this but the biggest problem is that you'd tend to play the same thing over and over and over again...

Click to expand...

This is very good advice. Ultimately, where you want to be is when the instrument is no barrier between the musical voice in your head, and what comes out from your hands. Scales, chords, theory, technique etc. are all tools for expression - not a end in themselves, but a means to an end - that goal of 'playing from the heart'. You need not know everything - all the chords, all the scales, all the modes, etc. and you can go as far as you wish to take it (one of the beauties of music) but I firmly believe that knowing and having a command of at least some of this is essential for *all* musicians who want to improvise melodically (note I distinguish between this and other avant garde types of improv which, while just as musically valid, might not be so conventionally aurally pleasing..)

By singing a line and then replicating it on your instrument, you are gradually teaching yourself to 'hear' the tune in your head and then play it. This is very, very difficult except for those blessed with perfect pitch but you can teach yourself to do it gradually. Like anything, the more you do it, the better you will get at it.

Start with small steps. Stay within some confined boundaries to begin with; maybe you want to devote practice sessions in which you play nothing but A minor Pentatonic. When you play each note, try to 'hear' within your head *before* you play that note, what it will sound like. Sometimes you'll get it right; gradually you will get better. Soon you will be able to 'think' the note in your 'mind's ear' and play it at the same time. From here, move on - perhaps expand to play all the notes within a single key - say C Major for ease and familiarity; play lines, but sing the notes to yourself internally (or out loud if you wish - some say this helps reinforce the learning). As you get more and more advanced, you can add in notes outside the current key - this is where things start to get more tough. The important thing throughout all of this (and I can't stress this enough) is that you must try to think MELODY at all times, not just let your fingers fly; this is when you will discover new things rather than just rehash licks that you learned by rote. And of course, it goes without saying that you want to start off playing SLOWLY.

This can be a lifelong journey for the musician who really wants to create spontaneous music. I can't say I'm an expert by any means, but on those rare occasions that I do manage to get in the 'mental zone' where the music really seems to be coming from some subconscious place, there really is nothing better than that.

Happy noodling.

Vern

Hendrix- not particularly my fav player but i embrace his philosophy: translate what's playing in your mind to you guitar, forget rules for a while. i've been doing that all these while & it makes me a better player... if you can similarly embrace this conceptual approach, you'd be surprised how articulate you'd be along the way. the reason why anyone would pick up a musical instrument is to 'say' things through them. articulation makes a better player IMO rather than mastering schooled thoughts & then not knowing what to say...

John McLaughlin had this to say about articulation: "... no matter how inspired you are, if you don't have the means to articulate on the instrument, you'll be defeated in your attempts to say the unsayable."

G Major = G B D, so ending your lick on one of these notes (especially the 1st) will sound 'strong'.
D Major = D F# A, likewise
C Major = C E G, likewise
Am = A C E, likewise.

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vernplum, thanks for the advice on the soloing part. But I got a question, if the song is a jazz one, say in Gmaj7 Family, then for a simple chord sequences of

Gmaj7 Cmaj7 D7 Am7

then how do I need to play to make the licks sound strong over each of the chord, as what you have said? And how does differents modes(Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian etc) come into play?

Shengjie, please refer to my post at


Regarding soloing over those 7th chords, the principal is the same in that the chord tones are the strong notes and are the ones that you want to emphasize the most. Of course, you need to know either the chord spelling, e.g. Gmaj7 - G B D F#, or, you need to know the shapes of the chord all over the fretboard.

http://www.soft.com.sg/new/modules....c&t=2014&sid=6802b3c390a92bc5d75329a4b49e071a

for an introductory discussion of the modes.

I'm not really a jazz person, so I'm not clued up on all the fancy ways to apply modes over the various chords. For example, for the Dm7 you can apply D Dorian (from C major scale) but for Am7, jazz players often treat this as the II chord in the key a step below, in other words, for Am7 in this progression, you could apply A Dorian (from G Major scale) over it.

I would welcome any insite any advanced jazzers can give here...

Sorry - that was a confusing mistake -

The sequence is Gmaj7 Cmaj7 D7 Amin7 so the modes you could use may be:

G Ionian
C Lydian
D Mixolydian
A Dorian

Essentially, all the modes u just listed are the notes found in the G maj scale. Many jazzers don't care about modes. They think of the chords and melody and work around these things. Most good musicians won't even think in modes, they think in terms of 'sound' rather than scales.

IMO, scales with 'fancy' names is a way to make music academic as well as make money from selling books etc. Most importantly, if u can't hear the chord tones, no matter how many scales one knows, he won't be able to improvise effectively.

Well, like I said, I'm not a jazzer, so I can't say how they think.

You're correct, all those modes are part of the same scale - G major. There is more to them than simply naming them so that it makes music 'academic' to sell books (modes were around long before commercial music book publishing came on the scene) - the whole point of modes is that they stress a certain tonal centre and they are a useful tool for learning how to improvise.

Are you sure about that point that most 'good' musicians think in terms of 'sound' rather than scales? Probably many do, but I doubt they got to the status of being 'good' musicians without learning a scale or two.

Also, can you tell us how exactly a jazz musician 'thinks of the chords and melody and works around it'? It sounds like an easy shortcut if only you could expand somewhat.

vernplum said:

Well, like I said, I'm not a jazzer, so I can't say how they think.

You're correct, all those modes are part of the same scale - G major. There is more to them than simply naming them so that it makes music 'academic' to sell books (modes were around long before commercial music book publishing came on the scene) - the whole point of modes is that they stress a certain tonal centre and they are a useful tool for learning how to improvise.

Are you sure about that point that most 'good' musicians think in terms of 'sound' rather than scales? Probably many do, but I doubt they got to the status of being 'good' musicians without learning a scale or two.

Also, can you tell us how exactly a jazz musician 'thinks of the chords and melody and works around it'? It sounds like an easy shortcut if only you could expand somewhat.

Click to expand...

Scales is an execellant facility for technique and fretboard logic, but when it comes to real improvisation, it is rarely thought of in scalar form. Why do you think some players don't transcribe from other guitarists? Guitarists tend to 'box' up their improvisations, relying on positional security.

If you have listened to pat metheny's clinic, he chooses what notes to play by hearing tones relative to the chords. For e.g. over a C maj 7 which is C E G B, he hears all the other tones such as D, Eb, F, F#/Gb, G#, Ab, Bb. Essentially this is playing by sound. Real improvisors pre-hear what they want to play. Most players will know the scales but when they play, they have the melody in their head and phrase a solo thinking about the melody and chords. Sometimes they don't even bother about the chords! If you play an Eb over C maj it sounds 'bad' in most contexts but what if the player wants that 'bad' sound?

Like all art, it is usually about the intention and real improvisation requires a high degree of relative pitch. I say relative pitch because a classical musician with perfect pitch may not be able to improvise. One can bluff his way using scales and licks but when you play with a good pianist who reharmonises stuff all the time, how are you going to use your modes in the first place when you don't even know what chord is being played?

Most good musicians don't like to talk about modes, scales etc minus those in academia. That's where the phrase 'if you can sing it, you can play it' came about. I like to make an analogy to language. When you are typing, are you thinking of nouns, tenses, and grammer in general? Obviously not, for you would take a month to type out your reply to me. You hear the phrase in your head and the sentence makes sense intuitively. That's because we have mastered the language to a certain level. How did we learn a language? By reading and listening. The grammer books helped straighten out some loose ends. Same thing with Music. Some get there by reading and listening, some get it purely by listening. Scales is one of the means but it's very easy to blindly practice scales without listening to the scales effectively. Most of the time, scalar practice just degenerates into pure technique exercises. Reading, listening and transcribing is more effective as an approach to learning improvisation.

Ablue - please read my earlier posts further up this thread, especially the one that begins "This is very good advice..." you'll see that in many respects I couldn't agree more with many of your points about more advanced improvisational aspects.

However, what we started out trying to address was a plea for help in some foundational knowledge in to how to apply scales over chords. Note I qualify my statements very clearly with the method being *one* way of approaching improvisation, and I try to give steps as practically useful as possible, and as simple as possible so somebody can get started right away.

Yes - by all means, Pat Metheny's technique is a very good alternative way to approach it, but I do strongly disagree with your statement that good musicians doing 'real' improv rarely think in terms of scales. Look at Allan Holdsworth - have you checked out his training DVD? He talks about 10 scales that he uses. Joe Pass - on his 'Jazz Lines' DVD - scales and arpeggios over chords and things such as 'what to play over an altered dominant chord'. Frank Gambale - scales, modes, etc. John McLaughlin on his latest "how I do it" DVD covers scales and modes very extensively. Are you saying that what they are saying is bunk? Ok - granted - they might not be thinking all the time "right, this is a B minor chord coming up, so I have an option to play a Dorian mode, or a harmonic minor or something else" but in composing those tunes and working out what they can play over them, the knowledge of scales and how they work harmonically is almost certainly heavily utilised.

I can't believe that Pat Metheny got to where he is today without learning scales and modes and to say something like "scales with 'fancy' names is a way to make music academic as well as make money from selling books etc. " is bordering on irresponsible in that it is likely to turn some beginners away from learning these necessities in favour of your more esoteric and difficult suggestions. So now what do you recommend to Hofner of practical value that he can use right away to play a solo to "Knockin' on Heaven's Door"? Do you advocate that he try to hear all the individual tones as extensions to the underlying chordal harmony as it passes? For a beginner, that's simply too difficult. Seriously - I'm asking you - please tell us what it is he should do, if it isn't learning scales and modes in context against a chord. I'd really like to know as well.

I am not advocating the running up and down of scales and modes in a robotic manner - what people traditionally think of when they hear these words. I advocate knowing these scales as a safe and trusted framework of knowing which notes will work in certain situations. You can't hear in your head what notes in a scale are going to be like against a chord if you never played that scale before in your life.

Also, let's not forget that Jazz isn't the only type of music that is improvised. Nearly all types of music include it and have proponents within that style. The method I describe in this thread is adequate for Rock, which is my main stomping ground.

Last of all, just to redress the balance for the poor old Classical musicians, one of the greatest improvisors of all time (most of his compositions were created spontaneously, then written down) with the most prolific and massive outputs ever, whose music has lasted the best part of 500 years was Johann Sebastian Bach - and what did he rely on as part of his extensive arsenal in creating his staggering body of work? The modes.

.

Just whack can already!

so complex.... 8O

Just whack can already!

Click to expand...

That's the way man!