Do you think you’ve got no chance at developing the ability to improvise solos?
So did Clare before she started lessons with me!
When students of mine want to learn how to improvise we do 3 things:
1. I teach them scales that are relevant to the type of soloing they want to be able to do.
2. We go through each scale position and I show them common ways guitar players they want to be able to solo like use them.
3. We workshop different ways we can link these ideas together over a riff or chord progression.
There are lots of other things we can do as well as these 3 things to develop the ability to improvise, but this is generally enough to show the student they have what it takes to improvise solos with the right knowledge and adequate practice.
“When I started with Dean I was keen to learn how to improvise. In the past I would just make up random stuff and hope it would work out but it never did. I always thought I had no chance of being creative. Dean gave me a whole lot of things to practice and ideas I could use for improvising. Now when I put a backing track on I know what to do.” – Clare.