improvising

whats up guys, i've been playin for a year and i just been playin some easy songs like bush and nirvana, but ive been practiceing scales a lot and can do a couple hard songs, but my guitar teacher seems just to teach me new songs nothin else, i was lookin for any advice yall could give me
, and explain improvising to me, is it just messing aroud with the scales to a song or what thanks,

improvising is just playing around with a scale, and making it sound good. i like e minor pentatonic for improvising.

The art of improvisation cant really be explained detailed enough to put any justice to it. Its magical (when everything sounds great at least), its something that comes from you, but can be influenced by others.

For example:

In my opinion, most songs are crap; not because i don't like them, but because i would hate copying a musician note for note all the time; granted, not everyone is like this, and you get thousands of mini-steve-vai wannabes running around. That is okay though, whatever floats their boat.

Creativity is something needed for a good improv guy to happen, and a great deal of time. I've spent the last 7 months working improv, and its worth it.

How old are you?

Originally posted by taylormarkow
improvising is just playing around with a scale, and making it sound good. i like e minor pentatonic for improvising.

You have such a long way to go! A scale is like a palette you chose your colours from. A solo should be an enhancement to the song that contains it... maybe presenting variations on the melody, or suggesting new ones. Learning scales that fit the key of a song may help to reduce the possibility of dropping a 'clunker' into a performance, but without a sense of melody, you are just floundering about, hoping to stumble on something that fits.

after a while, you dont think of the notes as being 'notes', you think of them as, you know, a yellow brick road (or whatever type of trippy journey your mind takes you to)im serious.

I had a few very awesome jam sessions of the utmost extacy so far in my guitar career (:) being 14 :)), and i can tell you you get higher than any drug will take you, and being a guitar addict, its one thing you search for.

play a song that you love, like me- My guitar instructor and myself both love the song "Franklin's Tower" by the Dead, and we jam to that almost every guitar lesson. To some, they would think "wasted lesson" but i can tell you jamming is the biggest lesson you'll ever get...

btw, dont you think there should be a "Jamming" forum at Guitartricks, like a seperate Jamming forum? Maybe we could suggest that :)

i see what your saying, whats yalls favorite scales to use.
and whats some of yalls fav songs to jam to, oh yeah im 17,

you can only really have a nice jam to a song if you care about that song emotionally, for instance, if i blew a metal solo totally (which would be rare, even though im not into metal), it would mean a whole lot less than if i blew a dead solo. I would still feel horrible, but a whole lot less horrible.

Buy a scale book, i always hear people say "learn this first" but really it just depends on your playing style.

Lordathestrings is right on the mark in his comments. Take them to heart. Remember, your guitar is like your voice, try to sing with it, put emotion in. I find that singing words to myself that seem relevant and which match my emotion help me to phrase my playing during a solo or an improvisation.

Originally posted by Dave How
Lordathestrings is right on the mark in his comments. Take them to heart. Remember, your guitar is like your voice, try to sing with it, put emotion in. I find that singing words to myself that seem relevant and which match my emotion help me to phrase my playing during a solo or an improvisation.

:)

change that little quote to "Incidents" or "Incidents
Happen" where "Lordathestrings" is and you'd be correct:)