A few years ago I would just improvise to ADII's "Soap Shop Rock" (what a dumb idea on my part 'cause there is not much room for me to stretch out on the electric guitar) and Floyd's "Echoes" and "I'm A King Bee". Nowadays, I would just improvise on the electric guitar to mostly classic rock and classic prog. So far, I'm a failure, although I do think I've stumbled on some intriguing ideas while playing over the same chords from the middle of Yes' "Astral Traveller" (where Mr. Peter Banks gets to stretch out), Gm and C (although I think that on the track it's not actually a C but something else).

EDIT: I've extended the premise of the thread a little bit. Given that I struggle with improvisation, I want to know what the people here think about when they improvise. (It really is a shame that I haven't put that in my OP early on. Damn me. )

I love to jam on keyboards (mostly Hammond simulation)

My common play list:

Boston - Foreplay

Procol Harum - White Shade Of Pale

Pink Floyd - parts from Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Have A Cigar, Great Gig In the Sky (piano)

Transatlantic - Rose Colored Glasses

Santana - Soul Sacrifice

Booker T and the MGs - Green Onions

Niacin - everything (just cool to jam with)

Manfred Mann's Earth Band - Father of day (Moog/organ) 

Jon Lord & Hoochie Coochie Men - Back at the chicken shack

when you buy one track, you can download unlimited versions of it, creating your own "minus-guitar" or "minus-keyboard", "minus-vocal" or other version 

 

Also many hours to the Black Crowes first two albums just improving solos.

 

Now with a looper in virtually every multi-pedal, it's so easy to jam to chord progressions. That's my main tool now. (Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder is my current jam)

Jamming by yourself is good too. 

When I was learning guitar I jammed along with everything.  But the album I jammed with the most was...

 

 

I think we are both doing this because we have nothing else in life to substitute the pain/agony we feel when we deprive ourselves of playing live..whether that may be doing covers or originals it does not matter. The numbness or jaded affect it can have compares to the feeling one gets when he/she is past the point of starvation and their stomach has shrunk...Yet who wants to wake up every day and have the same routine?  If I perform till 3:00 Am ..at least it changes reality around me and when I wake up the next day, it doesn't feel like life has a rope around my neck. I would rather mow the lawn Sunday morning remembering that a few drunks liked my playing the night before than to have spent my evening channel surfing through garbage on T.V....I know it is pathetic to enjoy lame credit or gratification , but sometimes it's better than staring at the 4 walls or working toward a goal which is not practical and ending up in the same swamp in Hell as Vincent Crane.

We did not jam much, we tended to work on clearly structured covers with little if any improvisation, but when we did jam it was mostly on the background progressions of some prog classic such as the soloing sections of Floyd's Time or Comfortably Numb, Rush's Xanadu, Yes Hold On, Marillion's Script or Jigsaw and stuff like that. We just went into the soloing section and kept extending it until nothing decent came out anymore or we burst into laughter or exhaustion.

 

What I find interesting is how some of the higher paying gigs are landed through sexual activity between a band member and an agent, manager, or club owner. There is networking, production, radio promotion and yet so many important gigs are landed that way. People want to touch another body just to reassure themselves they are not phantoms and they are vampires in the music business. Mofia and corporate criminal activity got the best of me. Maybe Tibet has the answer. Maybe we should all save our money and invest in an island where proggers meet for the weekend, playing prog through a huge sound system.

Ain't it the truth!!  I've had Holdsworth make me want to fling my Les Paul....

When I first was learning to play lead, I would put on a jazz-rock LP like Stanley Clarke's first solo album.  As you said, there was plenty of room to noodle around.  I don't improvise on bass much, mostly try to learn the songs note-for-note.  

When I do the prog gigs with my band, the majority is structured but when we do improvised sections it's all very organic and I try different things out every gig, incorporating jazz ideas, make a noise with effects pedals, shamelessly shred whilst trying to create a melody...it's all part of the fun!

Particular songs I have always loved improvising too though are Hendrix songs, The Pump by Jeff Beck/Larry Carlton/Lukather is a great one and any of Guthrie Govan's solo album is always a mind boggling challenge, that leaves you coming out of the other side feeling quite dizzy!  

 

NOTE: Very long and detailed rehearsal techniques! If you don't care for theater/film and how to possibly expand this to music, please do yourself a favor and skip it!

 

Gonna try this from a writing, and acting design. Acting, I have a lot of experience with working with actors and I can easily tell you I specialize in improvisation with them ... guided or ungiuded. As a writer, because everything I have tried has helped me write and change what I write and HOW.

 

Exercise: (Couple hours needed for a short script!) (For actors in a scene of two - let's say) ... (and then I will adjust this for musicians!)

 

Find a dark space. Sit. Or lay down.

 

Go through the whole scene/act by just reading the lines ... do not worry about anything else.

When done relax.

 

Now, go quietly in your head through the movement that you can do with each line as you go through the whole scene. Stay in order and focused on the continuity ... usually takes a little "discipline" ... in your notes later you will find that you wanted to get around and do something else when you had to go here or there and say X.  When finished relax.

 

Now go through the script with your partner -- in character -- but concentrate on the VISUAL side of things you are doing, so you can see yourself and your partner move on the stage. Concentrate on "watching" your partner (instead of yourself like you did the exercise before!). You are STILL siting down during this exercise ... this is about your "visual" part of things.

 

When done relax

 

Now go ahead, get up and do the whole scene/act with your partner ... silently ... just the physical motions all the way to the end of the scene. Concentrate on what you think might be the best expression now that you can not say a word of it! You are still siting in the corner!!!!!

 

When done shake it off ... relax and smile ...

   

Now, at the end of these two hours, doing a full rehearsal is counter productive, and you want to just go home, relax and come back fresh tomorrow ... and when you do the rehearsal tomorrow, notice how the concentration and attention to detail has gotten so very strong ... that it makes the whole thing better all around ...

   

For writing, for me, the only problem I might have is that any "writer's block" for me is more about ... I want to do something else, and I feel trapped. Thus free forming it, is best ... and I have a lot of things that I have no idea what to do with ... and sometimes they meet something else, and sometimes they don't ... every artist has that problem ... so I'm quite ok with that.

  

Music ... a guitarist ... I do this with my bass, btw.

 

I have DIFFERENT aptitude in music that I can not describe. So I will accept that it is possible that some of this might not work, but I have tried it a couple of times with a few people and parts of it worked.

   

Music, just like writing, to ME, is less about my "mechanics", so conversely, in a musician it would be less about the notes and the chords. Ex: ... a lot of music is "pre-defined" as sad or happy. But did you know that Bach intentionally composed things in different keys to disprove that? Like wise ... this is the strongest and most important premise in this exercise ... to define that detail FOR YOURSELF ... not about music, not about notes ... or ideas ... and hopefully, you will find a thread that helps you "listen" so deeply, that you automatically KNOW what to do and use all the time ... and this, inadvertantly or not, is usually the differentce between the great ones and the rest ... they have learned to "fly" (it really is that!) with their sight and vision and thoughts ... and this is not something that you can define in "notes and chords" until AFTER you did it ... it's sort of like the pretention of class room composing that you will compose a small piece on the piano that shows you crying from beginning to the end ... you can't do it ... until "after" it happens and you lived through it.

   

Requirements: 25 different sound effects, one each from the 3rd track of each LP from the BBC sound effects library. Or the 4th. Or the 5th!

   

Now here comes the pudding! You arm your guitar ... no effect needed ... and play the 1st sound effect ... and try to blend the guitar playing to it. Try it again ... You're gonna get frustrated. Try it again ... STOP. Put the guitar down and go take a walk around the block. Have your smoke -- avoid drugs for these exercises! Now try it again, and you will find a few notes and sounds to go with it. Ok ... now you can create some sequences around that vacuum cleaner sound. Cool ... that was fun ... Do it again! Now play the 2nd effect. Oops ... a saw? ... and you will have the same problem.  Keep it going as much as you can.

   

The essence, you will soon find, is that you are "listening" to what is OUTSIDE YOU, and this will make you a much better musician in a group ... because you now can see/know what others are doing, and it will make it easier for you to accentuate and define a moment with the folks you play with.

   

Do the next exercise ... and as time goes by, these become fun and a challenge ... but you can NOT know what the next effect is ... it has to be a surprise -- which works best.

    

Next day, in silence, start playing something that you might have remembered that you did with a sound effect ... and it will feel like you "know" that part ... and you will be able to develop it some. You might even distort and break apart the exercise sound and speed it up and down and drop it on the ground or slow it down to a halt! ... and guess what ... you stayed with it the whole time.

   

In the end, what all these exercises do is help you pay attention to YOURSELF even better than you thought you might have been able to, or understood. It also takes away the "self-consciousness" that goes with the majority of actors on stage and 85% of all the musicians I have ever seen in my life ... even Damo Suzuki, was not "free" on stage doing what he is good at ... he was "trapped" in a time warp! And musicians that could not help him, and take an idea out of town and create something new!

   

My problem about improvising around sceles or songs? ... WTF ... is like telling me to go improvise around Prufrock ... or Shakespeare ... and that's stupid ... you either have an idea of what you want to do in an improvisation or it is NOT an improvisation ... and too many musicians have this strange notion that they can find more "hidden chord" and one more "hidden note" somewhere behind the song you are improvising on ... and that's -- in my book -- a waste ... why? ... it's not your song, and you can't change it!

    

So, create your own ... improvisation. Anything is a good enough start to help you figure it out ... but the only thing that matters is how much you stick to it and how much you learn from it ... and in general for me ... I do not improvise on "Prufrock" ... because there is nothing to find over there that matters anymore!

    

 

This would work great if you were at the big pow wow's that got us the early Amon Duul stuff ... or a really good Grateful Dead powow ... that the members themselves used to join in for fun!

 

Hehe!

 

Actually , this is still done, and I know 2 folks in California that still do these meditations and exercises, although one of them is vehemently against the drugs and would throw you out and not give you your money back within 5 minutes!

 

You don't need it. Your own body produces the best Lysergic there is via your Pineal Gland ... so why do you need substitutes?

 

But yeah ... I've had some good trips a lot of mescaline and acid in those days ... but I'm a veteran ... I quit it a long time ago, and I'm crazier now without it, than I was then with it!

 

Can't you tell?

 

BTW ... you can induce this in your dreams and meditations ... EASILY!

This music is very rare. In fact it is our first test with some loops.

We want to make music with you ....

 

Some of the rehearsals I did with folks got funny and weird ... but it really helped. So, if you caught me walking through the middle of your rehearsal with a vacuum cleaner ... you better not drop the ball! ... and that was the point ... you do not have to drop anything, and in fact, you can actually bend it to accomodate a different step or two or funny second or two that fits!

 

And, generally, for me, this is the part that a lot of "new music" is missing ... it is soooooooooo hogtied ... ooopppsss dawtied that the folks playing it don't even realized how jailed they are to that meter, instead of the reality, beauty, ugliness, and whatever other feelings you had in that specific second of time ... which is where the majority of creativity comes from ... but you end up learning more about "continuity" and "musicality" than sometimes we give ourselves credit for ... but I guarantee you that it will take you away from the DAW and help the band tremendously!

 

Well, at the very least we wold have a Faust a la Faust now! But I think we would be better than them!

 

Many folks improv themselves on a sound ... The Edge does ... Robert Fripp does ... and many others ... but even then, working off sound effects, after a while you tell yourself some damn thing like ... the next time I hear that saw, that pedal with this much ___________ is gonna get a workout! And at that point, it is fun to play around with things!

^ Is anyone seeing this too?

She does make a valid point though.

 

You know what? .... that's sad!

 

You should be inspired, and not compare your ability to his ability ... and you feeling inferior, only tells you that the majority of music teachers you ever had were idiots that only knew how to put down people, not help them love and understand and appreciate the beauty in music ... which has nothing to do with what Jon does, and you don't!

 

D C D C Bm Am

D C D C B [coda]

Ya, I just set up my Motif to play the bass/drums/mellotron of the D C D C Bm Am indefinitely then quit when I start repeating my solo too much...sometimes I last 5 minutes, sometimes an hour 

^ Ooh, there's no way I'd be able to improvise to commercial tunes. Not much to go on to. I need to feel the chords. Maybe the chord progression needs to sound great before I pick up my guitar.

By the way, I've changed something in the thread's OP:

What technical concepts do you use when you improvise? Do you know scales?

--------0----2----3---5------

I find a lot of traditional, legendary jazz (and by this clumsy choice of words I mean avant-, modal, cool, hard bop, bebop - basically 'Trane and Miles' stuff) hard to follow. So much improvisation going on that it's hard to see a tune in a piece.  

I'm going to say something that might be a lot of help to my fellow improvisers around here:

1) I think that it's important for a player first to figure out what style he is going to improvise in at any given time. If it's jazz, is it hard bop or traditional modal or fusion? ("Sub-genre" is the keyword here.)

2) Figure out the cliches that identify that style. Play something mannerist, imitative.

3) Pick a chord progression and get into its character/feel, even if it does sound boring, because you are going to make it more interesting.

4) If you can't play the instrument, start off with something simple. Your playing style will evolve over time. Don't get too ambitious.

5) Figure out the notes in a chord you see most effective. I know blues and jazz musicians usually recommend relying often on the 1st (root), 3rd, and 7th tones, but there are times when they just don't work for me. I want to use something like b5th, 6th, b6th. A 5th sometimes works for me because it can extend the flow of a solo.

6) Resolution is important when you have to close a solo (you land on the root note or maybe even a 5th).

7) I've noticed that nearly all solos are made of separate phrases that are later on put together, and every phrase has its own character to it, its own rhythm, timing, pace, set of effective notes - a character, basically.

Unfortunately, this is just an idea on how to write a solo. The challenge of improvisation seems like a much tougher beast to handle. I guess in this case I have to figure out the most effective notes for every chord and play around with them rhythmically.

So, going back to my original question (or argument) of how to compose a phrase. The way I weave a solo is I string different phrases together, each phrase based on its own chord and placed in its own bar. One bar would feature a phrase that is a fast ascending scalar run. The bar after it would rely only on the root and 5th notes with an octave slide-up (since I play an electric guitar), executed economically, slowly. Two different phrases, each one has its own character. I don't know how other guys do it, but that's the gist I got.

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This one has "LVS" in the upper right-hand corner. Guess what it stands for.

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These two sets of phrases are based on Wishbone Ash's chord changes from "Time Was", only they are a semitone down. I want to be able to get into the vibe, the mood of something different and boring and try on my own to breath life into it.

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2) Otherwise, you can come up with one discovered by some culture. Modal scales are of curiosity to me, which are basically a major or minor scale with any tone/pitch taken as the root of that scale.

3) Be creative. You can come up with one on your own. Remember that in music theory some scales sound better when they ascend rather than descend, some vice versa, and others sound good when they descend and ascend.

4) Don't forget to mix scales.

5) Scat-sing. See what your head tells you. That's what I'd do.

Do you really find it rewarding whenever you play random stuff?

On additional note: there are so many scales out there (whole-tone, octatonic, etc.; just Google your brains out), but I can't say I would recommend any of them, except the blues minor, as I've already mentioned. Play what you like. A scale is "lifeless" unless you figure out for yourself how to work with it.

OK, this already sounds like I'm trying to convert you to my own thoughts.

ii(6) V7 IΔ7 IΔ7

Dm(6) G7 C(Δ7) C(Δ7)

in D Dorian whole-tone in C Ionian in C Ionian

Nowadays, I'm even improvising (or trying to) over Gentle Giant and VDGG, but my favourite stuff is Genesis and Rush. When you get a Steve Hackett kind of tone, everything sounds great as long as you stick to the right scale, and there's quite a big range you can play over Lifeson's guitar stuff.

I'm not too sure how to say I improvise over everything apart from obviously starting off with the scales the song/chord is in, but then you really do what you want. It helps you to master your own sound(s), so no-one can really direct you where to go with it, apart from giving a few templates to work around (or a lot in jazz).

Today I've spent some time playing the chords of the tune, and as rewarding as the things my right hand played were, I'm not a fan of anything that employs the Coltrane changes, following the same pattern over and over again. The things that modal/bebop jazz pianists pull off with their right hand is what I like. Maybe I'll have to try something less predictable in form and with greater variety of chords/types of chords along with a number of modulations, and improvise to that.

More recently I have put together a 'various artists' blues CD and a hard rock CD that I jam to.

If I want to practice faster riffs I will put on some Jazz/Rock/Fusion which can be embarrassing.

I'm glad no one is listening.

I try to play a little every day just to keep the old fingers in shape.

I remembered the importance of the 1st, 4th, and 5th notes (contrary to the popular belief that the 3rd's and 7th's are more important ... at least that's what works in jazz). Maybe it's just how rock music works. I remembered the importance of rhythm and what rhythms are cool enough for rock phrases when improvising over two chords.

Not a very good/productive day, overall.

When it comes to improvising, I guess you could say I improvise with myself.

I am a self taught guitarist and I do not read or write music so the songs I have created have been improvised (made up).

I record songs on a Boss BR864 digital recorder playing two, three or four guitar parts (I do not sing).

I start out with a rhythm track (chords) which I basically make up. When I'm satisfied with it I will go to track two and add lead guitar. Track three is usually a slide guitar or second lead guitar and I put this track in the background to support the lead guitar track. Sometimes track four will be bass guitar.

I recorded the first group of songs using the same acoustic/electric guitar on all tracks.

The BR864 has a built in effects section with over ninety different guitar sounds including six or seven different sounds for the bass guitar. The end result sounds like three or four musicians playing different guitar/amp set ups.

So, basically, that's how I improvise with myself.

I suck. I swang by the local Guitar Center store picked a guitar and a Marshall amp, tried to get some gain out of it, and hasn't really come up with anything solid. I'm tired of improvising for the riffs on the 6th, 5th, and 4th strings. That's too easy. Plus, I didn't get any sound I liked, and it was really hard to concentrate and keep the musical space in my head clean of dissonance since the kids around me were playing something else. I tried jamming to Steely Dan's "Your Gold Teeth", but nothing good came out of it. Then I remembered that my head has this habit of coming up with lines on the fly, and I have to record myself singing them and try to play them with rubato. I tried that with Tully's "Sea Of Joy, pt. 1", but my head couldn't come up with anything solid. I remembered that chord changes are important, but I wasn't getting anything out of "the 3rd and 7th notes are very important". Maybe in jazz they are, but that doesn't always seem to be the case with rock music.