Tips for Guitarists - January 2014
Improvising
Knowing your major scales, pentatonics and throwing in a passing tone such as the b5 will build up a nice foundation for improvising. However, as you may have suspected, there’s much more to it than that.
Improvising in any style can be thought of as speaking a language. The more phrases you know the better off you'll be in expressing yourself. Listening to your favorite artists is essential and I take it you're already doing plenty of that, as listening to a language spoken (or played) is important to doing it yourself.
I would suggest you start building up a vocabulary of phrases (licks, runs). There are numerous source materials out there for this: books with CD’s, DVDs, and of course your favorite recordings. Play through some of those licks and start memorizing your favorites. One way of memorizing them could be to write them out, or to record them.
Now it’s time to get a bit more musical with a lick. If you know what key your lick is in then play a chord that has it’s root note in the same key. For instance, if one of the licks you learned is in the key of E then strum an E chord to ‘tune’ your ear into the sound. Next, play your lick and see how that feels.
Try playing it slower, or faster. Change it from 8th notes to triplets.
Let's say you hear a new phrase that just knocks you out and you're dying to add that to your 'toolbox.' How do you learn THAT one? At this point you may want to think about downloading some real inexpensive program that allows you to do this. The Amazing Slow Downer is an example. It allows you to simply drag a file into it's window and once there you can isolate the phrase, loop it, slow it down to a crawl and keep at it until you've 'captured' that phrase. Doing this sort of thing is wonderful for ear training. It's well worth checking something like this out.
Now I’ll bet some of the old timers never learned from a DVD or a software program but I'd take a guess that they picked up a thing or two from listening to others. I'd also guess that they spent an endless amount of hours working their phrases, messing with them and just plain playing with them over and over again.
You might be thinking that memorizing phrases and spitting them back out again seems robotic. Well, it that's all you do with them then it is. But be patient with yourself here. At first they will seem robotic until your fingers have memorized them. At that point do exactly what you say you are doing already... adding variety to them.
This is what the pros do. I never met a single player that improvises well who hasn't built up a vocabulary of phrases... either intentionally or otherwise. We all have our 'stock phrases' but also know how to vary them.
So how would YOU add variety to your licks? You could start by seeing how 2 of your licks sound when strung together. Or try adding just a piece of one lick to another one. Perhaps you could start or end your lick on a different note. Experimentation is the key here. The more you fool around with these licks the more ideas will start to come to you.
Back to listening. Once you have a few favorite phrases see if you can hear where other people play them on their recordings. It's always cool to say 'ah, there's that lick again.' Pretty soon you’ll also be able to recognize the subtle and not so subtle ways that artists change that phrase to suit their own tastes.
As far as theory goes it can be very helpful to learn your major scales, blues scales, passing tones etc and you can learn these things from a ton of books. The CAGED system will allow you to learn your fingerboard and do some transposing as well. As I said, these will provide an excellent foundation to build from. Between doing that, building your vocabulary and experimenting you'll be well on your way to making up your own improvisations. Who knows... someone will probably be stealing some of your licks someday!
Play nice and stay tuned,
Toby
Improvising in any style can be thought of as speaking a language. The more phrases you know the better off you'll be in expressing yourself. Listening to your favorite artists is essential and I take it you're already doing plenty of that, as listening to a language spoken (or played) is important to doing it yourself.
I would suggest you start building up a vocabulary of phrases (licks, runs). There are numerous source materials out there for this: books with CD’s, DVDs, and of course your favorite recordings. Play through some of those licks and start memorizing your favorites. One way of memorizing them could be to write them out, or to record them.
Now it’s time to get a bit more musical with a lick. If you know what key your lick is in then play a chord that has it’s root note in the same key. For instance, if one of the licks you learned is in the key of E then strum an E chord to ‘tune’ your ear into the sound. Next, play your lick and see how that feels.
Try playing it slower, or faster. Change it from 8th notes to triplets.
Let's say you hear a new phrase that just knocks you out and you're dying to add that to your 'toolbox.' How do you learn THAT one? At this point you may want to think about downloading some real inexpensive program that allows you to do this. The Amazing Slow Downer is an example. It allows you to simply drag a file into it's window and once there you can isolate the phrase, loop it, slow it down to a crawl and keep at it until you've 'captured' that phrase. Doing this sort of thing is wonderful for ear training. It's well worth checking something like this out.
Now I’ll bet some of the old timers never learned from a DVD or a software program but I'd take a guess that they picked up a thing or two from listening to others. I'd also guess that they spent an endless amount of hours working their phrases, messing with them and just plain playing with them over and over again.
You might be thinking that memorizing phrases and spitting them back out again seems robotic. Well, it that's all you do with them then it is. But be patient with yourself here. At first they will seem robotic until your fingers have memorized them. At that point do exactly what you say you are doing already... adding variety to them.
This is what the pros do. I never met a single player that improvises well who hasn't built up a vocabulary of phrases... either intentionally or otherwise. We all have our 'stock phrases' but also know how to vary them.
So how would YOU add variety to your licks? You could start by seeing how 2 of your licks sound when strung together. Or try adding just a piece of one lick to another one. Perhaps you could start or end your lick on a different note. Experimentation is the key here. The more you fool around with these licks the more ideas will start to come to you.
Back to listening. Once you have a few favorite phrases see if you can hear where other people play them on their recordings. It's always cool to say 'ah, there's that lick again.' Pretty soon you’ll also be able to recognize the subtle and not so subtle ways that artists change that phrase to suit their own tastes.
As far as theory goes it can be very helpful to learn your major scales, blues scales, passing tones etc and you can learn these things from a ton of books. The CAGED system will allow you to learn your fingerboard and do some transposing as well. As I said, these will provide an excellent foundation to build from. Between doing that, building your vocabulary and experimenting you'll be well on your way to making up your own improvisations. Who knows... someone will probably be stealing some of your licks someday!
Play nice and stay tuned,
Toby