All my Improv sounds the same?

Whenever I decide to improvise, it seems to always come out the same. Just a pentatonic scale up and down with a little varitation. Is there any way to improve on my improv?

Here's something I sometimes do... Instead of playing what comes out of my fingers, I use my voice and play what comes out of my mouth. It gets me outta my muscle-memory rut.

If you practice to some backing tracks, you can get more familiar with what notes match your voice.

I learned scales, and could never figure out why they didn't do any good. My solos only started to sound interesting when I threw away the scales and played the notes of the chords -- and other notes that were physically near the chord.

It's easier to do than to explain. If you start learning licks off recordings (particularly 60s stuff), you'll notice that the licks use pieces of the chords. There will be other notes, but more often than not, those notes will be so close by, you won't even have to move your hand to grab them.

I learned scales, and could never figure out why they didn't do any good. My solos only started to sound interesting when I threw away the scales and played the notes of the chords -- and other notes that were physically near the chord.

It's easier to do than to explain. If you start learning licks off recordings (particularly 60s stuff), you'll notice that the licks use pieces of the chords. There will be other notes, but more often than not, those notes will be so close by, you won't even have to move your hand to grab them.

I agree with this. In fact, if you analyze any really great solo, especially by really melodic players like George Harrison, for example, they're following the chords. Learn arpeggios.....of course, then you have to learn to not make your solos sound like you're running arpeggios up and down.

learn how the pentatonic scales fit into the major scale. learn the blues scale too. sometimes it takes a little while to get a good solo going, be patient with it and try singing what you play too.

I suggest that you learn the melody line. You start with that, and once it is firmly ingrained you can begin to embellish on the melody. You will find this works well with what was previously suggested to "play the changes", or following the chords. This is exactly what you will be doing. The arpeggios work particularly well for fills and embellishments even when you are not soloing.

Here's something I sometimes do... Instead of playing what comes out of my fingers, I use my voice and play what comes out of my mouth. It gets me outta my muscle-memory rut.

If you practice to some backing tracks, you can get more familiar with what notes match your voice.

^^^^^^What he said! ^^^^^^

Take the time to learn solos of different players. Pick one player and play in that style for a little while, then pick another and play in that style. Over time you will have a bigger vocabulary to draw from when you play different songs.

Here's something I sometimes do... Instead of playing what comes out of my fingers, I use my voice and play what comes out of my mouth. It gets me outta my muscle-memory rut.

If you practice to some backing tracks, you can get more familiar with what notes match your voice.

+1 after so many times of playing the scales you can sound thennotes in yourn head and play what you hear in your head

Take the time to learn solos of different players. Pick one player and play in that style for a little while, then pick another and play in that style. Over time you will have a bigger vocabulary to draw from when you play different songs.

yup in the last 3 months i've been listening to a ton of SRV and even unintentionally if i listen to my playing i steal licks from him

This is a really interesting problem to me. I agree that you should learn the melody and learn about scales. Beyond that, though, is where it gets interesting. I like to pay attention to what I am playing, and not playing, then trying to figure out what my reflexes are. Once I am aware of those, I try to replace them with other reflexes. This is a long term project.

If your technique and knowledge are far enough along, you might try this. Find a song or backing track to solo over and go ahead and do it for a while. Then, find a live YouTube performance of another guitarist, and try to mimic what he does. It is not important to stop and copy, just take a stab at the rhythm and pitch contour. This should only take a few minutes. Then go back to your backing track and try to channel the other guitarist. Again, accuracy or transcription are not the focus. The emphasis should be on using the skills that you already possess to adapt to a different musical impulse. But, as I said, this may not be the thing for you to do if you don't already have enough fluency.

I do various things...like channeling; weird things like how would a frog do the melody or visualizing two birds doing arial dogfight or dance; sometimes I can hear a melody within the melody, i.e., that is more fundamental or basic and try to stretch it, compress it, put some heat or cold to it; try with different rythms/times, play the edges of it; or try to fit a different genre into it...like a reggae into a bluegrass. But I'm a basement noodle that plays along to whatever....so I don't worry about the musicality and sometimes it works and many times not. The problem with the approach, is that I'm a reactive/interactive noodle and need something to play againist or with and have a hell of a time just coming up with something on my own.

it's not what you play it's how you play it.
and, if you don't play licks you can't run out of licks.

Try to think about the melody and the chord changes. Play around with the melody, pull chord notes and fragments out of the chords, anticipate changes by moving into the new chord tones just ahead of the change, mix up flat and normal 3rds and 7ths, try some chromatics, play "outside" notes on the off beat and strong chord tones on the beat, try to phrase your playing as if you were having a conversation, pause for natural "breaths" rather than just wailing away, mix up your articulation by playing slower passages among your faster playing, play with plenty of dynamics including varied attack and vibrato styles, try to mimic other instruments and phrases from saxophonists/pianists etc, transcribe your favourite solos and then work out why they played what they did, every time you learn a new lick or technique try to use it musically in as many contexts as you can.

That should help.

I'll just echo what some others have said, in hopes that it gives these ideas more credence.

1. Learn to be able to play what you can sing/hear in your head. It just takes practice.

2. Try to copy the style of other players. I wouldn't suggest doing this on a gig unless it's purposefully a bit of a joke, but it's a good way to have fun and learn.

getting better at either one of these things will help you get better at the other.

I am new enough to actually learning guitar that I have no true right to respond but I am nailing down my first scale well. Am pentatonic with additions.
I occassionaly DO apply something I learned playing other instruments at times and it always sounds much better when I do this:
Simply imagine your guitar as two people having a conversation.
There's just something about a woman nagging a man (the higher notes) and the man trying to defend himself and calm her down (lower notes)
Of course when she doesn't listen the intensity increases and well then there's the make up se...

Try learning another instrument - bass, mandolin, ukulele, banjo, keyboards, harmonica.
Learning these will improve your vocabulary on your guitar.

Learn chromatic scales. Very few songs truly use pentatonic, blues does not (blues "pentatonic" is at least six notes). All the keys, major and minor, all the notes but not necessarily in the right order. And the jumps I- IV, V, VI, VII, &c.

Learn some jazz. Most modern popular music has its foundations in jazz. The chords and changes are extremely useful for any improv.

Remember, if you're using the pentatonic scale, that's only five notes!

Get those notes burned into your brain.. Then you can play guitar when you're not even with a guitar. In the shower, on the bus, at work, wherever. I'm sure a lot of you are doing it right now.

And yeah, I do this too. I play with my fingers not my brain and it just sounds like random notes of a scale. But you have to stop yourself doing that.

Try to tell a story, think about the rhythms and phrasing of just everyday conversation. There's music everywhere, breath it all in!

Enjoy!

This is a very common problem and there are numerous ways to get out of the trap. Do you have a teacher?

I like to pay attention to what I am playing, and not playing, then trying to figure out what my reflexes are. Once I am aware of those, I try to replace them with other reflexes. This is a long term project.

I couldnt have said this any better. Maybe I'll replace the word 'reflex' with 'gesture' - but the notion is the same. Work out what it is that seems automatic in your playing and start working on changing it - its not easy but man - this is great advice for any of us.

I am not at all a metal guy, but I have learned lots from this old Marty Friedman video. Skip the intro and most of the video focuses on his approach to playing the changes. He goes through several chord progressions and a blues and shows his approach which is mostly chord tones and arpeggios. I was surprised at how useful it was.

http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=5777562536751428345

Whenever I decide to improvise, it seems to always come out the same. Just a pentatonic scale up and down with a little varitation. Is there any way to improve on my improv?

From your description it sounds like the problem you're having is rhythmic in nature. Phrasing. You're getting driven by feeling the need to include all the notes in a scale and that's just not a very musical motivation.

So here's my prescription.

Play a backing track and solo with only one note. Two at the most. And get so funking rhythmically interesting with that single note (or two) that you forget about the other four (or three) notes. It can be done.

So take note choice out of the equation and all you've got left is rhythmic variation and that is where you're running into trouble. If you can phrase in an interesting way with one (or two) notes you can apply the same thing when you include the other notes.

It works. Try it.

I like the suggestion above of starting with the song's melody and vary it. Other improvisation strategies:

Quotations: sometimes it's surprising and funny and sometimes lovely to quote a piece of melody you've found elsewhere. TV themes, commercial jingles, pop songs, classical, folk, ethnic music. Even if your audience doesn't catch the reference, weaving in a quotation can make things sound fresh.

Playing against the song: Play in a rhythmic texture or atmosphere totally counter to the song.

Other keys: Experiment with playing in a pentatonic rooted a half step down or a tritone down/up from the home key of the song, or a whole step above, a minor third above, etc. Each has a different effect. Usually a bar or two of this will do, then resolve back into your home key.

Thematic improv: Take a small rhythmic or melodic figure, and tease out all its possibilities, up and down the neck, half speed, backward, double time, choppy, smooth, etc. Think of Beethoven's 5th (da-da-da-DAH--all over the place). Neil Young is really good at this. Check out the solo in "Down by the River." He does this rhythm on a single note, and continually returns to the same figure in new ways throughout the long solo.

None of these strategies have to be done in a fancy, Master's-degree-in-jazz-guitar way. You don't have to have great technique to employ lots of different improvisational strategies, just a lively mind.

Try playing fewer notes, weaved around the melody. IMHO less = more.

You don't have to have great technique to employ lots of different improvisational strategies, just a lively mind.

There ya go. "A lively mind" is a lovely way to say it. A playful mind is the most suitable mind for playing music. Get playful.

If you get lost in notes then you will never find where you're trying to get to. But when you get lost in rhythm..... you're already there. And the only way to get suitably lost in rhythm (phrasing) is to have a playful attitude.

Go on a exploratory journey of melody, eat up all the melodies you can. Convert vocal lines into guitar. Sing a line first before playing it. Try to play while doubling w/ your voice. Just do anything to get to play more melodically.

Play some new tunes over new chords. Different modes. If you play 12 bar pentatonic blues over dom 7th chords, play some over minor chords. Play some country. Internalize a few booker T songs.

All I'm saying is just try to focus on melody, and try to inject some new stuff into both what you play and what you listen to.

Here are the three tricks that really improved my improvising.

1. Know the pentatonics really well. Pentatonics can sound good for hours when improvising, especially if you switch between the major pentatonic patterns and minor pentatonic patterns, and move with the chord changes.

If you know the minor pentatonic patterns, you automatically know the major pentatonics. If you take the A minor pentatonic pattern that goes from the 5th fret to the 8th fret, and move it down 4 frets, so that it begins in the 2nd fret, and goes to the 5th fret, the same pattern becomes an A major pentatonic, etc. Also, an A minor pentatonic is also a C major pentatonic.

With the pentatonics as a base, it's pretty easy to learn the complete major and minor scale patterns, which just add 3 notes to each pentatonic pattern.

After that, modes come pretty easy. If you improvise using C major scales (or a C major pentatonics) while the rest of the band is playing in D major, you're improvising in the Dorian mode. If you improvise using a C scale while everyone else is playing in G, you're improvising in the Mixolydian mode.

2. Steal (copy and memorize) licks that by players you like. I don't steal note for note (at least, I won't admit to it:wink:), but I'll steal half a lick here, and add it to half a lick there, or make up a new half. With a dozen or so licks memorized, there's always something to fall back on.

3. Listen. Only half of improvising involves actually playing. The other half, which is equally important is listening to, and understanding the music that you're trying to improvise over. Listen for chord changes, volume changes, anything that builds suspense.

There's a lot of good advice in this thread, so just go with whatever works best for you.

Well, some of that sounds backwards to me, but I probably had a differetn background. To me, a pentatonic is a scale with 3 notes missing (and sometimes some of them moved around). But I didn't start theory or guitar.

If playint complete scales is the problem (and I've known guys for whom it was), try being conscious of not playing more than 2 notes that are together in the scale. That'll break things up pitch-wise. And if rhythm is the problem (as in it sounds like you['re doing a school exercise) consciously don'r play more than 2 notes of the same duration.

......just add 3 notes to each pentatonic pattern.




..... a pentatonic is a scale with 3 notes missing .......



A pentatonic scale has five notes and the major scale has 7 notes. That's a two note difference not three.

There ya go. "A lively mind" is a lovely way to say it. A playful mind is the most suitable mind for playing music. Get playful.

If you get lost in notes then you will never find where you're trying to get to. But when you get lost in rhythm..... you're already there. And the only way to get suitably lost in rhythm (phrasing) is to have a playful attitude.

I second that....getting caught up in harmonic concepts can hamper your playing - 9 x out of 10' students who struggle getting interesting harmony happening, are actually suffering from too much focus on it and not enough on trying to play a steady 1/8 note and phrasing.
You have to enjoy that 'physical' part of playing the guitar as much as the harmonic head game -in fact dont separate them; the masters never did.

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