How do I improve my ear and improvisation skills?

[Magnit]

I've been working on this for what feels like an eternity (a couple of years to and from).

I know my modes. Ionian, dorian, phrygian, lydian, mixolydian, aeolian, lycrian and their sub (pentatonic) forms and how they fit over chords in different keys. I've started dabbing in adding blue notes to the pentatonics and winging it from there. I'm trying to incorporate bends, slurs and slides in my playing. I'm just not feeling that I'm creating anything interesting. It just sounds so mundane and boring. The best I can accomplish is a tasty (simple) melodic lick to go with a song I hear on Spotify. The latter is nice, but it's more useful in song writing than what I'm trying to achieve (play by ear and improvise).

I know the notes on the fret board.

Maybe delve into arpeggios? But as I see it that will mostly help with chords that are outside the key. And I already have some skills in that area.

I'm just afraid it will be another skill that I won't know how to wield.

Learn loads of licks by heart?

So, how do you guys do it?

Edited October 9, 2018 by Magnit

[Six String]

6 hours ago, Magnit said:

I've been working on this for what feels like an eternity (a couple of years to and from).

I know my modes. Ionian, dorian, phrygian, lydian, mixolydian, aeolian, lycrian and their sub (pentatonic) forms and how they fit over chords in different keys. I've started dabbing in adding blue notes to the pentatonics and winging it from there. I'm trying to incorporate bends, slurs and slides in my playing. I'm just not feeling that I'm creating anything interesting. It just sounds so mundane and boring. The best I can accomplish is a tasty (simple) melodic lick to go with a song I hear on Spotify. The latter is nice, but it's more useful in song writing than what I'm trying to achieve (play by ear and improvise).

I know the notes on the fret board.

Maybe delve into arpeggios? But as I see it that will mostly help with chords that are outside the key. And I already have some skills in that area.

I'm just afraid it will be another skill that I won't know how to wield.

Learn loads of licks by heart?

So, how do you guys do it?

Snip - So, how do you guys do it? 

Short answer is I don't really know.  You are ahead of me if you have decoded modes, but I've pretty well got down the pentatonic forms with added blue notes.  

Bends and slides are important tools but the best sounding players I've played with all have a great vibrato and can do it on top of a bend.  

I'm taking a Truefire blues power chord course that is helping with my improv progress.  The upshot of the course is to target roots and 5ths.  You can play them as power chords, arpeggios or individual notes slide into the 5th from 4th, bend 4 to 5 to root or the powerchord, etc and it will sound good.  They always sound strong and stable, so they are your target notes to come back to and spice with the other notes of the scale.  You can build some phases on these ideas to expand on.  

I'm also spending a fair bit of time trying to improve my vibrato especially vibrato on top of a bend.  This is not a skill that is coming easy for me.

Good Luck

Edited October 9, 2018 by Six String

[Blue Dog]

This video might help i dont know . there are more on what note to bend, But i can not find them.

 

Edited October 9, 2018 by Blue Dog

[V7#5b9]

@Magnit

“Maybe delve into arpeggios?” Yes, absolutely. Arpeggios are the target notes all approach notes resolve to. It doesn’t matter whether the chords you are playing over, are inside or outside the key.

“Learn loads of licks by heart?” Yes, absolutely. The phrases you learn become your musical vocabulary, as long as you understand their anatomy and how to use them.

Here is a short list of courses for you to consider:

Chord By Chord Blues Soloing 

How To Improvise Blues Solos 

Bebop Guitar Improv Series 

As for improving your ear, check out Jazz Guitarist’s Guide To Ear Training.

[NeilES335]

@Magnit You might want to take a look at a series of highly regarded  instructional books by Jamie Aebersold, recommened by Steve K. I have the Jazz Guitar 1 adaped for guitar by Corey Christensen. ( book plus 2 playalong CD's under $25) "The most widely used improvisation method on the market" . Although it is focused on Jazz improvisation, regardless of your style preferences Im sure you' d get a lot out of it.

Congrats btw... you'e obviously worked very hard to learn much more than the average or even advanced player. 

[Nutty 1]

@Magnit You have a lot of great tools in your repertoire, congratulations for learning so much.  All of the replies above contain superb information. The only bit of advice that I can offer you on top of all of that is to record yourself soloing for a few bars and analyse what you have done, then do it again and again in different ways over the same part of the backing track. Listen to all of your tracks, pick the best parts of the tracks that you have done and then record a new run incorporating all of the best bits and see what you think. Simple short melody runs with spaces between them (like a conversation between two people with thinking time in between) and some repetition is a good approach.  Sometimes it is the space in between the action that provides the spice. 

[Magnit]

Thanks for the input and congratulations. I picked up a guitar for the first time in 2009 and bought Steve's course a couple of months later.

I've been playing regularly (almost daily) since and even had some gigs with fellow musicians. I feel that I've moved past the intermediate bed room guitarist stage, but I still have gaps to fill. These come to mind.

* Bends and vibrato (Need to get a lot better at it)

* Music notation. I *can* read music, I'm just not good at it.

* Certain chord changes. While I don't really struggle with chords anymore, there are still changes that stump me. Especially now that I've moved past the majors, minors, 7ths and susses.

* Rhythm. One can always improve one's rhythmic skills.

* The subject of this thread.

 

*edit*

Paul David's tips are relevant too. I haven't seen these before.

https://youtu.be/tYZqMy2E_MA

Edited October 10, 2018 by Magnit

[Triple-o]

Congratulations on finishing the course.

You might take a look at Brain’s material at Active Melody .com he has a lot of material on solos.

Can you explain what you mean when you say arpeggios are mostly used for chords outside the key?

Edited October 27, 2018 by Triple-o

[Magnit]

On 10/13/2018 at 6:17 PM, Triple-o said:

Can you explain what you mean when you say arpeggios are mostly used for chords outside the key?

I don’t know if they are, probably not. I view(ed) arpeggios as a fallback when a song has chords where the mode scale won’t sound ”right”.

Edited October 28, 2018 by Magnit

[Triple-o]

Thanks, I was curious about your comment.

In your original post you also talked about melodic licks. Since melodic licks are usually based on arpeggios I have a feeling you have been using them unwittingly.When ever I find some combination of notes that sound good.They usually turn out to be arpeggios.When I add expressions (bends etc.)to them its about the only time I feel any emotions in my solos/improv

Eric Clapton’s song, “Bell Bottom Blues”come to mind where his intro is based on arpeggiating through the chords.Speaking of Clapton,he seems to use the pentatonic scale a lot,so it’s not the notes he plays, it’s more about what he does with them.

Some  of his musicical ideas seem  to be based on old blues music and guitarist like Freddie King and Robert Johnson etc.So he has a starting point.

One solo I constantly go to for inspiration is David Gilmours first solo in Comfortably Numb. Chord tones and a lot of expressions.

[Magnit]

Thanks for the tip.

I’m currently practicing traversing mode scales in larger interval steps to get away from the regular scale run trap. I’ve also gotten much better at bending.

With the added skill of bending my playing got a lot more interesting.

Next is arpeggios.

Edited November 2, 2018 by Magnit

[NeilES335]

10 hours ago, Magnit said:

Thanks for the tip.

I’m currently practicing traversing mode scales in larger interval steps to get away from the regular scale run trap. I’ve also gotten much better at bending.

With the added skill of bending my playing got a lot more interesting.

Next is arpeggios.

We'd love to hear a sample of your work... It would encourage others.

[Randy120]

It seems you already have some skills to work with. I would also recommend the Jamie Aebersold Jazz Improvisation Volumes 1-3 books.

Ear training is just going to take practice. I still have trouble picking out the bass note to tell me what is the I, IV, or the V.

I jam along with a lot of different tracks trying to find the proper key.

I have found that I can play pretty well with certain "grooves", and others make no sense to me. I can play A minor blues with ease, but my funk is just funky.

Try simplifying your riffs. Let 2 notes lead to 3 lead to 4. All progressions start simple then build complexity as you advance. 

[Old Guy]

Although you are far ahead of me with the theory and knowledge of scales and such, my question is; what do you find boring about what you are creating?

Does it just sound like you are running through the scales when you play? I guess where I'm going with this, is that even though you know the language, perhaps it's forming the phrases that is difficult?

There are a couple of ways to break out of that habit of just doing scale sounding runs. First, try to play against an unfamiliar genre of music. Pick some backing tracks that don't conform to what you usually play, map out the chords, and play within those chords on each change. That will force you to break out of routine runs as it will require you to play within each chord and change the pattern on each chord change.

Although I've been playing almost thirty years, and never learned any theory at all formally, my goal when I play over any music is to play with the chord changes. It's a challenge that keeps it interesting every time I sit down to do it.

[Magnit]

On 12/20/2018 at 2:03 AM, Old Guy said:

Although you are far ahead of me with the theory and knowledge of scales and such, my question is; what do you find boring about what you are creating?

Does it just sound like you are running through the scales when you play? I guess where I'm going with this, is that even though you know the language, perhaps it's forming the phrases that is difficult?

There are a couple of ways to break out of that habit of just doing scale sounding runs. First, try to play against an unfamiliar genre of music. Pick some backing tracks that don't conform to what you usually play, map out the chords, and play within those chords on each change. That will force you to break out of routine runs as it will require you to play within each chord and change the pattern on each chord change.

Although I've been playing almost thirty years, and never learned any theory at all formally, my goal when I play over any music is to play with the chord changes. It's a challenge that keeps it interesting every time I sit down to do it.

Thanks for the pointers and you’re spot on. Since asking the question I’ve added phrases to the mix and instead of traversing the scales with single notes I try to chain phrases together. Using only a few and repeating them sounds the best to be. Also playing over chords instead of the key is also helping, but I need more practice with that. Targeting chord tones is harder than I thought, I usually need to think the progression through before I start nailing it. I’m far from being able to play over chords on songs I’m unfamiliar with.

Edited December 22, 2018 by Magnit