Hi there,
It would be so awesome to have a few backing tracks in the Justin Guitar App…I dont want to switch to guitar pro!
thanks all for this discussion and all the links. i didnt really get this lesson until i tried some of the backing tracks you have listed. SO much better. im sure im doing it v badly but it does at least feel like im noodling. like a guitarist might. fun.
lost the link. for me later, best/easiest to noodle over is: https://justinguitar.com/guitar-lessons/5-blues-licks-from-pattern-1-bl-404
coming back to this. i feel more lost. should i know licks to do this? or just makeup stuff. yes, my question is: when improvising do i just make stuff up ?
Hi Will, improvisation isn’t making stuff up on the spot, it’s playing things you know very well and using them in new ways. As you progress you will develop your vocabulary to express yourself.
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ok, that makes sense. but i have zero vocab then at this point apart from the blues solo from this lesson. so play bits of that?
@_will take a lick from the lesson and see what you can do with it over the backing track. Mess with it , change how it’s played, change the order of the notes. Find what you like and don’t like. Add the things you like to your improv.
The link you posted in August is grade 5, the thread you have posted in is grade 2, where are you in your playing? If grade 5 go back to this grade 2 lesson and rewatch it. It will answer all your questions.
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Think of the lesson as similar to the major scale improvisation lesson a few modules earlier where you listened to how each note rings out over the chords and identifying which combination of sounds you enjoyed and the emotion they conveyed as you play them. It’s an opportunity to experiment with the phrases you learned in the blues solo lesson whilst developing your own phrases as you explore the minor pentatonic scale you learned in the previous module.
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im just starting grade 3. the link is just for the backing track there.
When improvising and playing a lick, is the idea to always land on same note of the chord being played? For instance, in the key of A, when the chords change from A to D, do I want to end resting on the note D as well?
Update: After I posted this, I started to practice it and noticed that many times I would land on a different note than the chord being played and it sounded great. I found a lot of time I would start on the same note, but from there where I landed could be random.
I guess I’m just trying to see some “rule of thumb” for improvising versus just playing random notes to see what works.
Hey Dave,
Like yourself, I’ve found over time that some structured experimentation is always a good way forward. No absolutes here.
When the chord actually changes, it is often the case though, that one lands on a chord tone, such as the 1,3,5, b7 etc…which punctuates the underlying chord.
Cheers, Shane.
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I agree, that experimental part is very important. Play your licks over different chords in progression (i.e. I IV V) and see what works. You can then classify your licks according to chords. You can analyse then why they work with certain chords and not others (notes from chords). Then it is just the case of learning a lot of licks and use them at a right time in a right (ideally your) way. 
That is not easy at all.
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I agree, sometimes i feel i really had a good little lick going, I come back the next day and get close but can’t remember exactly what i did. So it’s hard to build on…
Just start and try and end on the root note, that’s what I’ve been told.