Here is a cool concept i want!

Hey guys,

I wonna ask you something. How do you reach this level of improvisation?... And how do practice escaping your licks (especially the repeating licks that keeps going on the same 3-4 notes). I found out that it's actually a thing im struggeling with in my playing and improvisation...?

It seems like my brain simply can't think that fast, if i have to improvise over this kind of thing. Also the fact that i kind of run out of alternate ways to play the notes (note selection wise)... Even though most of it is just the pentatonics..especially those fast kinda ''on the beat up and down the scale'' kind of notes. One of those passages starts from 2:38 to about 3:03 (that kind of barrage of random notes on the fretboard), The whole solo from 2:20 to 4:20 is actually this kind of random note thing that i just can't seem to get working for myself... Extreme frustration...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iqr6rK2ylp0

Check it and see what im talking about. That improvisation is beyond sick in my oppinion... It depresses me, but makes me motivated at the same time. Just don't know how to practice that stuff. Making your playing sound interesting and somewhat different every time and ''improvised!''
Check it out and see what i mean.

Give me your thoughts. I would love your oppinion!

My opinion,

Confidence, Pure Confidence……

Slash has put in the years it takes to get the level he’s at. He is also secure that whatever he plays well, as a lead the fans will like. He does not look like he second guessed anything he played in the 2:20 to 4:20 area. Watching it with no sound I did see different patterns played over, then strung together in many different ways.

You just need a little bigger fan base.

Are those patterns explainable?

Turn your sound off, watch the video a few times. Not having sound frees your mind from being awed by what you hear as you watch and just lets you watch.

Thanks for the advice, i will try it for sure!

caponi, how have you approached learning the lead riffs that you know so far? I remember the video posted before on YouTube of you playing... what process did you go through to learn to do that?

Originally Posted by: caponi14Hey guys,

I wonna ask you something. How do you reach this level of improvisation?... And how do practice escaping your licks (especially the repeating licks that keeps going on the same 3-4 notes). I found out that it's actually a thing im struggeling with in my playing and improvisation...?

I know I've mentioned this before but it's worth epeating, listen to southern rock players. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Allman Bros, Molly Hatchett etc.

The key to improvising is knowing how to repeat patterns. There is an underlying vocabulary to blues playing and blues licks. If you learn and know them, you have the vocabulary the allows you to improvise. If you don't know them, you will always ask how someone can do it. It's like learning and writing language.

Some of Slash's influences are Jeff Beck, Rory Gallagher, Ted Nugent, Joe Perry, Mick Taylor, Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, Brian May, Billy Gibbons, David Gilmour, Angus Young, Eddie Van Halen, Elliot Easton, Joe Walsh from a Slash site I found.

Very diverse but, learn from them too. David Gilmour is awesome and is a virtual text book of taste and feel. Billy Gibbons from Tejas on back has some great blues rock playing. Elliot Easton from the Cars? Interesting choice but shows how to play with economy. Rory Gallagher is just awesome.

Anyway, they all have a base on some blues rock knowledge and why knowing that core of playing gives you the vocabulary to play with some flexibility and therefor, improvise.

If you want to play like your hero, learn how he got there.

I don't really recall how i got to the level im at exactly and how i managed to work out the licks. They have gotten better and smoother over the times, but one thing i always struggled with is that variation on my noteselection when i improvise. Slash in particular simply does so many different ways of playing the blues scale with some added notes here and there. I have never really found out how i shall work on that and find all the cool things with just sometimes just 3-4 notes.. :S

hey caponi14...
You might take a look at these lessons with Bobby Howe. There are 7 lessons.. A few may give you a couple of hints
The Minor Pentatonic Pt. 1
http://www.guitartricks.com/lesson.php?input=15884

Caponi14,

“Jeffs65
I know I've mentioned this before but it's worth repeating, listen to southern rock players. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Allman Bros, Molly Hatchett etc.”

The reply above is probably the most valuable answer you will get from this thread.

I would like to offer the names below as just a few of the old blues masters, some of them listed; the above bands were inspired by.

T-Bone Walker, Otis Reading, Sam Lightnin' Hopkins, Mississippi John Hurt, Son House and Buddy Guy.

You need to widen what you can draw from. You will hear timings and bends used in ways you have not heard or thought of yet. You might even hear were a lick Slash plays came from.

Caponi, I potentially have some practical suggestions in regards to your original post & questions. In turn, I'd like to ask you a few questions, and apologize if they seem too basic:

-what scales can you play all across the fretboard? For example, do you know how to play the pentatonic minor scale in all five positions across the fretboard?

-related to scales, do you know what scale "sequencing" is, and have you practiced it?

These are not loaded questions... just trying to gauge where you're at with certain aspects of playing.

Great thread everyone. This site rocks (literally and figuratively!)

My take on the great rock and blues improvisors is that they all have an enormous musical vocabulary. This means they have amassed enough musical experience (read: PRACTICE!) to be able to go to the well over and over without becoming stale mid-solo. You can easily tell when a player has exhausted their musical vocabulary, as they tend to resort to cheesy tricks and noise making (read: wailing on the trem-bar for 48 mind-numbing measures)

My advice would be to always force yourself outside your comfort zone - learn new riffs, phrases and scales. Incorporate them into your vocabulary. Practice breaking out of the pentatonic box - there are dozens of notes "inside" that box that will sound great if you use them.

Lastly, try slowing down and drawing out the energy with some sustained whole notes with vibrato, or perhaps some awesome complementary chord progressions amongst the single-note runs. A great solo does NOT always have to be about speed and flash. (David Gilmour anyone?)

:( Thank you for all the great answers. I guess i kinda always knew what i had to do. Im just to stupid to face the true solutions.

Lately i have been so depressed with my playing. I don't really enjoy my playing anymore.. And if i don't enjoy it myself, why would others enjoy it then?..
I can't seem to get the right sound i want, and hearing in my head.
Im so selfcritic im sucking up my feelings for playing guitar... I REALLY hate myself for being so critic and stubborn.
People say i play good, but i just can't accept that people think so, because im so sad about my playing...
I don't know what the hell i can do... Some periods i love playing guitar and feels that the stuff i play sounds better then one of these periods im in right now. Can bad mood really affect your playing badly this much? I seem to forget all licks and tricks i have learned when im like this...

At the core of this all. Im just really F***ing sad and depressed with myself :(

Caponi14

Different people hold on to different things. Some of those things serve the holder, while others force the holder to serve them. <------Re Read

You hold on to interesting things and a lot of them. Basing this on what I read above.

It seems like a while back you posted yourself playing. As I remember you are quite fast and accurate for the amount of time you have played. So you must spend a lot of time practicing. You hold on to something in you to spend that kind of time practicing the same thing over and over to better yourself.

Whatever that thing is, severs you.

Then you have things in you, you hold on to that will not let you enjoy things you should.

You serve them.

They direct your thoughts, keep you beat down so you know you have to serve them. Most just seem to be thoughts, in your head. Stop severing them. Values and things we hold on to are really the only things that can’t be taken from us. Money, cars, homes….. can all be taken from us.

So let the things you hold on to better you and if they don’t let them go.
Allow yourself to be happy.

Thanks dude,

I kinda needed an uplift. Im just so tired of me never getting satisfied with the playing. If I dident want to play anymore, I would not have spend so much time practicing this. And I have played alot of concerts now. Those i totally thought the most of them were great too!

There is just something about my selfcritisism and ''unsatisfaction'' that is ripping itself through all aspects of my life...

I have heard it a hundred times, practice what you don't know, don't bother sitting there playing what you already know.

I am guilty of the very same thing, and it slows you down.

Originally Posted by: haghj500Caponi14

Different people hold on to different things. Some of those things serve the holder, while others force the holder to serve them. <------Re Read

Very wise words, my friend.

They were very wise words indeed. Had to read it a couple of times to get it

Al Baloney, caponi14

Thank you, as far as I know they are mine. But who knows, I may have read them somewhere as a child.

caponi14

"There is just something about my selfcritisism and ''unsatisfaction'' that is ripping itself through all aspects of my life..."

Why ?? Things we hold on to can change, if we choose to. They can't be taken from us, but they are ours to change if we choose. Why are you serving this, letting it ripple through. It has a bigger base than just you’re playing. Its time to think about what else is driving this ripple.

"I REALLY hate myself for being so critic and stubborn."

Stubborn is an interesting thing to hold on to. It allows one to make things better or worse for a long time.