9 Proven Techniques to Master Guitar Improvisation

Intro

Today I’m going to show you how you can improvise over chord changes and stay creative.

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A lot of the time, people tell me that they feel like they can express themselves beautifully and openly over one chord, but when other chords come into the picture, they feel like the chords are closing in on their creativity and limiting their ideas and freedom of movement.

So I didn’t want to go into something too complicated. Today, I’m demonstrating these concepts on a two-chord backing track that I made for you guys. At the end of this video, not only will I show you a few bonuses on how to be really creative when approaching these kinds of environments where chords are changing, but I will also give you this backing track that you can practice over and enjoy your own playing, hopefully by embellishing and making these ideas a part of your practice routine and identity as a musician and an improviser.

First of all, the chords that you’re hearing in the backing track right now are G minor 9 and B flat minor 9. This backing track is inspired by something that made a huge impact on my playing more than a decade ago, and that is the Scott Henderson melodic phrasing workout, which was released back in the 90s or so.

Exercise 1: Connecting Scales

Now, let’s get to the exercises. Exercise number one is going to be connecting the scales on one string. Before I head over into the backing tracks, I’m going to take one string and make sure that I know these scales.

The first scale on G minor 9 is going to be a G Dorian scale. I’m going to start from the lowest note on that scale, and this is what I get:

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Now, I would highly suggest you go over that scale on the rest of the strings.

Next, the scale B flat minor Dorian:

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Okay, so now that I know the different notes on the different strings, the next step is to take one of those strings— for our demonstration, we’re using the high E string—and see if we can play one note per chord while making the changes happen.

Notes per Chord

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So I’m really aware of each function of every note: this is the 11, the flat three, the five, the four, the six, the five, the root, the seven, the nine.

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Okay, so now I’m going to demonstrate how I play two notes per chord using the same kind of idea, and then moving on from there to four notes per chord, which is going to give us half notes for the two notes per chord and quarter notes for the four notes per chord.

Here it is:

The Motive

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Bye, so…

Next Step: Keeping a Motive

Next step is going to be trying to keep a motive going. The motive can be anything you like, but I would suggest starting with a really simple one. For example, let’s take the interval of a fifth and try to apply that over the changes:

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Now let’s try to still play the interval of a fifth but kind of play around that idea, using different ways to embellish that motive with nearby notes like chromatics or some scale notes.

So let’s see how that sounds:

The Shape

Okay, so using intervals as a kickstart for an idea is great, but how about just taking a certain shape or contour? Instead of just thinking about the notes, think about the shape—is the phrase going up or down? Create that shape and try to keep it up on the different changes. Here’s an example of how that can be done:

I’m gonna play just whatever comes to mind shape-wise:

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Bonus Idea

So…

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Okay, so in this next example, I’m gonna play one phrase kind of hinting up in the contour and then another phrase kind of sliding down. Check this out:

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Okay, so now it’s time for the bonus idea. The bonus idea is this: when you’re improvising, try and think about wide and narrow in your playing. Here’s an example of what might be considered a wider improvisation using wider intervals and bigger leaps:

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Now here’s an example of a more narrow improvisation using seconds and thirds with fewer leaps:

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So you see, sometimes I did use a few leaps, but mostly it was like thirds and seconds.

Alright, so now I’m gonna just demonstrate a combination of narrow and wider intervals in the improvisation. I’m gonna try to keep the motive going, but let’s see—this might be very challenging. Let’s see what shows up:

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Outro

Alright, my friends, so if you’re enjoying this kind of vocabulary and style, I invite you to check out my 51 Galactic Jazz Lex course. I also invite you to check out my Galactic Modern Guitar course—the foundations—where I go really deep into the fundamentals of guitar playing and music in general.

So hit that subscribe button and like, and please drop me a comment. Let me know what kind of videos you would like me to make and what challenges you face when playing guitar.

Also, make sure to stay in touch and check out the other videos from this channel somewhere over here. I’ll see you:

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