So how do you practice improvising?

[rocketman]

As many know here I was trained as a jazz pianist. That certainly got my improvisation skills to a pretty good level. But guitar is a completely different story for me. I'm not a jazz guitarist at all. In fact, it's the complete opposite for me on guitar versus piano. On guitar I try to learn every solo note for note, even when I write one, while on piano I could care less about learning solos note for note. So I do a lot less improvising on guitar.

 

But lately I've been practicing doing it a lot more on guitar. Basically I just turn to the Palladia channel and just play along with whatever is on. Yesterday one of Clapton's Crossroads concerts was on and I just played along. It was a lot of fun; well, as much fun as you can have watching all the great players he gets on stage. The most important aspect for me is it helps keep my timing.

 

So what do you do?

[vangoghsear]

Backing tracks on YouTube. I find the key I want to work on and go to town.

[capmaster]

Having learned classic piano for twelve years, playing guitar came as something very different to me later since the use of both hands only seems to make sense in a strictly and commonly synchronized mode. Playing piano or drums is something completely different from playing guitar or bass in my opinion.

 

I am an entirely self-taught player of guitar, bass and drums, and I practice next to everything based on music and rhythm in my head since over thirty years. Conceiving the parts to sing and play in my songs myself is the very thing that brings me forward in learning to play chords, scales and grooves. Every song I write is a new challenge to match my initial ideas with voice and instruments. Singing and playing in two cover bands, too, I also do most of the preparation for the covered songs mentally, especially the drumming since I don't own a set to practice on.

 

My perfect pitch is a useful support in all of my efforts, also when playing drums. For recording vocals, I just need the rhythm track. Intonation comes easier to me this way since I can control my voice via headphones very easily without any tonal instruments.

[Guest Farnsbarns]

I don't use it but you might want to look up the CAGED method.

[btoth76]

Hello!

 

+1 on backing tracks from the web.

 

I often play along with records. Even, - if not mostly - to genres of music that are not my favorites. To become a diverse player, and avoid burning out.

 

I also like to play along to songs where vocals play the most important role. If You listen to a great singer, and try to "copy" His/Her singing with the guitar, that can improve Your phrasing abilities. In my opinion.

 

Cheers... Bence

[Versatile]

A very interesting question...pertinent to many players in a similar situation...

 

The piano and guitar make for different musical 'ways of life' indeed

 

It can be frustrating to have studied one instrument to a high degree

 

Then find another, like guitar, very difficult to make progress on

 

Connecting the ear to the instrument is more challenging on guitar due to it's non-linear

 

Configuration...the piano is more open to grabbing notes to the right or the left...

 

Some players have 'single string' days when they 'go linear' to help map out various scales and melodies

 

In the olden days :blink: jazz hopefuls would sit in with and be mentored by experienced

 

musicians...Charlie Christian and Wes Montgomery both benefited from this approach...

 

V

 

[daveinspain]

I use backing tracks when I can find them but I also play along with the tunes we play in my band, which I have on itunes. So I just go down the list of songs.... I used to try and work out the solos note for note but since I got the five pentatonic modes down I find it very easy to improvise solos over just about anything. Just knowing where to go all up and down the neck without hitting a clam is wonderful and opens up a whole new freedom of expression... I find, as most people do I think, improvising in the pentatonic modes much easier then in the regular major and minor modes... I need to work more on that... I can play all the scales of but I just cant find the flow like I can in the pentatonic...

[badbluesplayer]

When I'm not playing, I'm usually humming something to myself or just having little melodies running through my head so I'll hum a little melody and then try to imagine the fingerings as I'm humming it. Just make up a little melodic riff in my mind and then imagine the fingerings as I'm humming it. That helps my fluency.

[Golden]

I don't know, I do the above with backing tracks and have always done what badbluesplayer mentioned. For me though going from learned in classical music then into the band situation a couple years later is what quickly helped. Interacting live and spontaneous with other musicians can't be underestimated. And often with guys from other bands just on a spontaneous whim. I've done this in GC just goofing with other musicians.

[jdgm]

A bit of everything mentioned above; but also I use 'Band-In-A-Box'. This has opened things up for me a lot as you can use it in several different ways.

You can slow down a complex progression and play over it or play the chords - I have to have the sequence memorised to improvise well over it; type in a single chord and play scales over it at different tempos, time sigs or in different styles. If I am studying from a book, I type the chords into BIAB and play the book exercises at any tempo.

It will even generate solos with phrases I would never have played or thought of. This isn't any different from taking phrases and licks off a record or CD, another thing that is good to do. (Edited)

 

A good topic! Regards!

[Notes_Norton]

If you can't practice on stage, where CAN you practice?

 

When I was young, I played along with the radio, doing my best with each song that came on. That was good ear training and of course some songs worked, and others did not.

 

Since the 1980s, I use Band-in-a-Box to make backing tracks of the songs I want to play with the changes that I want in the song. It works better for me than anything else I've tried.

 

I can change the tempo and key independently, change the style, and even loop parts I'm having trouble with.

 

I liked BiaB so much that I started writing aftermarket styles for it. I'm proud of my work, to give them a listen, go to My Demo Page for some short mp3 Low-fi samples.

 

Notes

[quapman]

As many know here I was trained as a jazz pianist. That certainly got my improvisation skills to a pretty good level. But guitar is a completely different story for me. I'm not a jazz guitarist at all. In fact, it's the complete opposite for me on guitar versus piano. On guitar I try to learn every solo note for note, even when I write one, while on piano I could care less about learning solos note for note. So I do a lot less improvising on guitar.

 

But lately I've been practicing doing it a lot more on guitar. Basically I just turn to the Palladia channel and just play along with whatever is on. Yesterday one of Clapton's Crossroads concerts was on and I just played along. It was a lot of fun; well, as much fun as you can have watching all the great players he gets on stage. The most important aspect for me is it helps keep my timing.

 

So what do you do?

 

 

I've heard your guitar playing. You don't need anymore help.

Everybody clam up... He's already good enough

[milod]

First... I'll agree that our Rocketman is a heckuva picker.

 

I think, though, that there are basically two different sorts of "jazz" playing.

 

One is the "horn" paradigm where it's essentially one line.

 

The other is the "keyboard" paradigm where it's chords and chord variations and subs played more along the line of how a keyboard player approaches things. Joe Pass is a good example.

 

Obviously, in backing up a singer, etc., there's a bit of both.

 

My personal perspective on guitar is that of piano. I like the idea of playing the whole thing solo. When it comes to jazz, I doubt I'm quite able at all to do much with a group, but it's great fun solo.

 

Blues - yeah, I can do enough to get through some pieces, but given my life and lifestyle, for most of it I've been a solo guy regardless of musical genre.

 

So... just a thought. You're such an incredible musician that I can't imagine you having difficulty with the technique regardless which paradigm. The problem then isn't the theory or ability to perform, it's whether your head wants yet to take that step from theory into simply playing what you wanna hear that's within your capability on a fretboard and closer to the bridge. Or whether you let it do so.

 

In fact, I personally tend to quit trying and just be more like an old '30s piano player with vocals on top, break with melody variation and then back to "bum shush." Or just guitar, try to find differing fingerings that sound more or less what I wanna hear - pretty much as I'd do were I competent on a keyboard.

 

Bottom line is that I don't write, I try to sing over piano whether it's cowboy or jazz - and whether with my voice or a set of guitar notes over chords. Again, one might take either Joe Pass or Chet as kinda the concept there.

 

m

[vangoghsear]

Along the lines of the BIAB, I'll use my Jamman Looper and create rhythm tracks of my own especially to work on modes. I've got a book that tells me what chords are usually found within a certain mode and shows the scale associated with it. Then I'll play a rhythm track into the looper based on those chords and solo over that.

[zigzag]

I use Band in a Box, Blues stations on internet radio, the looping option on my Roland 80XL Cube (has a minute and a half loop), CDs, backing tracks... I use them all. BIAB is best, esp. for doing jazz improvs, because I can load the chords, so I know how to do arpeggios using the notes in those chords or those expressed/implied in the melody, or I can modify the melody, or mess around with scales/modes, or all of the above. I guess nothing beats being able to jam with others, but BIAB is the next best thing.

 

I'm kinda like m in that most of what I play includes bass notes and chords. When playing with others, esp. jazz, the bass notes are usually covered by the bass players and the chords by the keyboards. I need to practice playing chords that don't play lower notes. I should take whatever opportunities I can to learn inversions and triads all over the neck, but also Curtis Mayfield/Catfish Collins/Jimi Hendrix- type rhythmic, funky riffs that don't include bass lines.

[Karloff]

i just throw in a cd and start playing

[Notes_Norton]

I think one of the nicest things about music is the fact that the more you learn, the better you are, and the better you are, the more there is to learn.

 

For me the radio is good because it is uncontrolled by me, forcing me to go places where I would not choose to go. I can't pick the songs, I can't pick the keys, and I can't pick the style. It develops the ear / hand connection.

 

The good thing about Band-in-a-Box and to a lesser extent the Jamie Abersold and other MMO disks or the CD of your choice is that you are in control of the song and key. This has it's own advantage in that you can work on something specific.

 

Neither one is bad, both methods are probably better for most people - and as always YMMV.

 

Notes

[milod]

I think in ways of Joe Pass as being the example of what to do, if not entirely how to do it. There's no way I'm going to be anywhere near his class. Still, there are lessons to be learned, again, in the "what to do" in general.

 

When he did backup for Ella, he played her key, etc., etc. - and when playing solo, went bonkers with those inversions, substitutions, etc.

 

Then again, I'm thinking, and mostly doing, solo... so fingerstyle thought is "it." When I've played with some bands over the past cupla years basically it remained fingerstyle whether doing "rhythm" or swapping leads. Just playing what's in my head I'm comfortable with.

 

I don't know how others do "it." I've known some very good saloon keyboard folks who wouldn't/couldn't play without the music in front of 'em. I'm certain that for some of "us" the studies of this or that will be beneficial to what's in their heads. My head tends to have the lyrics and "tune" running no matter what I'm playing, and whether I'm doing a vocal or just... keeping place.

 

I'm pretty old style in that I tend also to keep pretty well to the tune if it's a jazz bit on "standards" and - yeah, even if it's jazz/blues although that doesn't generally to be how folks pick it.

 

Then again, the "pattern" or "psychology" in my head is pretty much what I listened to back in the '50s, so I'm likely awfully old fashioned.

 

I'm highly unlikely to be considered one to set a fingerboard or strings on fire - but I'd like to be considered fairly tasteful regardless what I'm playing.

 

m

[Izzy]

Looper pedal...I don't know any methods so I find my way blindly, but eventually I get comfortable with the key I'm working with and notice patterns and can guess accurately.

[capmaster]

Looper pedal...I don't know any methods so I find my way blindly, but eventually I get comfortable with the key I'm working with and notice patterns and can guess accurately.

Very clever method. Think it may be as smart as flexible for you doing so.

[rct]

Cable TV -> Music Choice -> Soundscapes. Or whatever I'm in the mood for, Swing, Sinatra, whatever. Who doesn't sit in front of the tv with a guitar? So, whenever a commercial or nothing on, over to them I go, noodle along with them. No idea what is what, have to figure it out in the time allotted, so it's fun. Never KlassiK Rokk or Southern AllmanHatchetSkynyrd38 or 70sArena or any of that stuff from my whole life, always other stuff I wouldn't touch if I had to.

 

I actually want to be heard on Soundscapes someday.

 

rct

[cookieman15061]

Like RCT said. I usually find myself bouncing between the blues stations and the jazz. Great stuff that makes you think outside your norm.

 

Back in the 70s it was the radio or albums.

 

In the 80s I'd sit for hours watching MTV playing to every vid that came on.

 

Don't matter how ya do it, just do it!

[badbluesplayer]

When I watch Lawrence Welk I'll play along. I get my swing thing going and play some catchy popular melodies in major keys.

[Tman]

I hum my thought/phrase into my iPhone recorder. Then I figure out the basic chords and make a loop on Logic and then play along to improvise.

 

 

Essentially it is an effort to come up with my next grammy catchy hook (ok,my first grammy). Wife has stated clearly, "no more guitars until the first grammy." Any grammy. If you don't swing the bat, you can't hit a home run.......thanks Dad.

[badbluesplayer]

Sometimes I try to play along with the jingles on the TV ads. Or listen to them and try to get the melody as fast as I can.