Learning to improvise

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Paul Wolfe
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Learning to improvise

Post by Paul Wolfe »

I'm wondering about ways to learn to improvise. I want to teach my boy how to apply his scales and thought I'd ask if any of you have suggestions for creative ways to do this.
Paul Wolfe
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Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2006 10:19 am

Re: Learning to improvise

Post by Paul Wolfe »

Anyone?

Bueller?
TPain
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Re: Learning to improvise

Post by TPain »

practicing with backing tracks is how I learned.. if he knows the blues scale, E minor pentatonic, play some backing tracks in different keys and have him just play the scale over it for a little since its a 'can't miss' type scale and then venture into repeating notes or licks over them, he should eventually just start to play what he wants over it

Johnny B Goode was a song I always loved to play since it had a ton of cool blues licks that could be moved around or changed easily and I think it helped my improve skills to learn them, just throwing some ideas out there ;)
Paul Wolfe
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Re: Learning to improvise

Post by Paul Wolfe »

Thanks for responding.. since posting this I came across a video lesson by Desi Serna that was immensely helpful.

He suggested the same thing, play up and down the scale in the key of the backing track and, in time, improvise a few licks. Then he suggested taking licks from a different song in the same key and playing those licks over the track. For example, in his video, he was using the backing track to Cocaine by Clapton. He then played licks and phrases from Hendrix's Purple Haze solo over the Cocaine track. He mixed them up and did not play in any set order and it sounded brilliant.

I tried the same thing, putting licks from different RR solos over the backing track to Armed and Ready by Schenker and it was enlightening!

Being that my son is 10, we are working on playing scales and licks over the song Determinate from the Disney movie Lemonade Mouth. I downloaded a karaoke version of that song and, with Adobe Audition, looped the section where the rapping is in that song and we are working on devising a solo to replace the rap part - or maybe we'll just extend the song and add a solo after the rap... who knows? It's fun in the process.
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