Embellishes Version for starters to improvising

[Paul K]

I would like to ask Brian if he could do a lesson on taking one of his basic lessons, i.e. EP307, and demonstrate how to improvise an embellished version of the basic 8 bar tune.

[sunjamr]

Hey Paul, Brian has done quite a few lessons on creating your own improv. I’m not sure, but maybe if you went to the Weekly Lessons page and did a search for “Improv” some stuff would come up. But in the end, I think most of us just start learning to improv by noodling around in the pentatonic positions. The melodies that you create either have to come from your own head, or from AI. I have used lots of tricks to create melody lines. The best results come from times when I just chill out and listen to the jamtrack a few times, while in my head I try to “mentally hum” a melody. Then I grab my guitar and try to play my mental melody on my fretboard. Was it BB King who said “If you can’t hum a lick, how can you expect to play it?” Let us know how you get on.

Sunjamr Steve

[Michael L]

Hi Paul,

Here’s two lessons focused on taking simple melodies and embellishing them.

EP 390

EP 605

Good luck and have fun with them!

[Michael Krailo]

He actually explained in that EP307 lesson at around the part where he described his thoughts on leading into the F#m chord with the F# minor pentatonic scale. You can add in any of your own licks out of that scale. The same thing applies to other chords in the progression but in the case of the ONE chord you can used a mixed bag of notes between A minor pentatonic and A major pentatonic. Usually in a minor key we are stuck with all minor pentatonic or some flavor of the minor scale in full. This one is in key of A so play what sounds good after experimenting.

You could play through the rhythm part of the song only and add your own embellishments from a clean slate as well. To do that well requires you to a fair amount of licks under your belt already. No sense in re-inventing the wheel, there are so many licks out there already to choose from.

Go slow and practice correct technique, and your abilities will dramatically improve.

[John H]

Paul,
Go to Lessons page and then “Tips And Advice”. There are 43 lessons, many of which deal with improv. Here is one example.

Learn how to Improvise using these 3 “Neighborhoods” on the neck. Guitar Lesson – EP471

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