Originally Posted by: SvanholmAfter looking at many many many tutorials on GT, Im a little bit lost when it comes to improvise solo to a baking track.
Improvisation has two basic components.
1. Knowledge of the scale or key & the chord progression.
2. An existing repertoire of licks that you can already play.
Yes, you need to know the key or which scale to use, but even more important, you need to use the scale to target the chord tones.
In the video you linked, the player has both components under his command! He is using E minor pentatonic as a basic template & he includes notes from E major pentatonic when they work for the chord that is currently happening. He also uses some chromatic passing tones. This simply means notes in between the pentatonic boxes that he con use to get conveniently from one box to the next.
How does he know which ones to use? And when to use them? :)
The answer is: experience, experimentation, trial & error.
This is how you build a repertoire of licks that you can already play, a vocabulary of things you can play at the drop of a hat. Improvisation is mostly playing pieces of things you already know, but mixing them up on the spot, artfully rearranging them.
Anders covers this extensively in the lead playing tutorials in the blues style courses. I cover it in many other tutorials.
For example, the guy in the vid took the time to learn a lick like this:
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=1614
That whole tutorial is only about one lick. But it's such an important, widely used lick, you have to know it if you are going to play standard blues guitar. The guy in the vid knows that lick stone cold up & down. :) He can play it anywhere, anytime he wants. He plays it & variations on it many times throughout that vid.
Now that's just one lick. That guys know lots of little licks that he can string together at will. You also noticed he's moving around the neck. But he's still just using E minor & major pentatonic blues licks. Remember, the notes of any one scale cover the fretboard. They aren't in just one position!
With all that in mind, have you gone through the blues courses?
How about these tutorials on improv in which I explain the importance of targeting chord tones?
www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=876
www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=483
www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=491
After that you need to build your own repertoire of blues licks. I have a bunch of them in these tutorials. These are aimed at showing you how to use the pentatonic boxes to target chord tones in blues in order to play the kind of things that guy in the vid is doing!
www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=217
www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=232
www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=826
www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=244
Now, if all this is too advanced, don't worry! Try starting with these simpler tutorials that are aimed at teaching the same thing, but from a more beginner level. If you work through these, you can eventually get to the more advanced stuff!
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=170
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=918
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=189
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=723
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=1614
Have with it & let us know how it goes!
