Major Scale Improvisation

Beginner Grade 2 Module 10: Alternate Picking, Hammer-Ons...
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To help improve aural skills, maybe it would also be a good idea to sing along with the guitar while improvising the notes?

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@melr317 Definitely, if you can, sing along to the major scale as you practice it. Some notes may go outside of your range. To sing what you improvise or, vice versa, to play what your improvise in your singing, is a high level skill. It definitely takes a good ear plus superb knowledge of the intervals and where to place your fingers for the notes you know will hear / expect to hear.

image

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By far the most fun lesson for me, enjoyed it so much!
I remembered that about 15 years ago when I had my first attempts with a guitar (I went trough a huge hiatus from guitar and only now I am trying to learn again), some of my friends at school were ahead of me on their guitar lessons and would do those improvisation sessions with each other, they invited me of course, but I don’t know why, I had no confidence and a ton of anxiety on top of being behind, so I felt blocked and judged even before trying. Being able to do it now feels so great and it is so fun!

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Very fun! I did just the thinnest E string and tonight will incorporate more. It’s difficult not to shoot ahead and do more, but I’m staying the course.

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Awesome. Great fun and actually makes me feel like I am getting somewhere. great lesson Justin.

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As part of module 17 practice it suggests doing 10mins. of Major Scale Improvisation which brings me back to this lesson and the associated discussion. One comment that goy me thinking is this:

How do you play a scale and a chord at the same time?

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Stuart

The idea is to record a backing track or loop with just a C chord being played. Could be just a simple 4 strums per bar but just the one chord. Then while that is playing, experiment with the C Major scale and see which notes sound the best. Does that make it clearer ?
If you had someone to play with they could play the chord while you play the scale.

Or maybe try playing over this C chord vamp. Just one chord for a whole 20 minutes, that should keep you busy.

Enjoy

:sunglasses:

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Toby beat me to it. Stuart, I don’t recall whether you’re playing electric or acoustic. When I bought my guitar and amp, I also bought a looper pedal for just this purpose, and it’s very useful. If that’s not an option and if you don’t care for the backing track Toby provided, there are many others here on YT that you might be able to use.

I do think the looper pedal is ideal, because then you’re creating your own backing track, which makes you think and feel more for what you want there and then means more to you when you’re using it to improvise. It’ll probably give you ideas about what would make the backing track better so that your improvising would be better. Yes, it becomes “extra work,” but it does a lot to expand your awareness of how music works, and I think that’s extremely valuable.

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What Shane is suggesting is to concentrate on the notes of the chord, so if you’re playing c major scale play and or finish on C E or G play these notes more than the other notes. This leads to learning intervals which helps immensely in using the major scale. Like most things there are easy to remember patterns. If you know where the root note C is (and your aiming to focus on the chord tones C E and G or the root, third and fifth, the noting the B string anomaly the fifth is always directly above the root, i.e same fret but up (physically a string and the third is always a string down physically a one fret closer to the headstock.

Once you’ve learnt this for C major you can apply it to any key as the 3rd and fifth are always in the same position in relation to the root.

Another benefit of this is it also teaches you triads across all strings. Once you have this down you look at added other intervals, 7ths etc.

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@Stuartw a visual of what Greg is telling you find all the C E and G notes in the image.
image

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I should add including the open strings they are part of the scale. There was some confusion over this earlier.

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It is very fun to do and actually very easy also. Very simplified and basic and Justin as always does an excellent job to explain things and show how it’s done. Justin even provide a 2 min backing track for download in the resource tab. - Stuart, You will quickly get it.

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Thanks. Any idea how to grab the audio of these videos so that I can then play them/improvise over and record both together?

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There are converter/downloader sites. Just search for “download youtube audio” and you should find some.

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I was really dubious of this lesson, but I gave it a try and – wow! It’s so much fun and works a whole lot better than I expected. I might skip the rest of today’s practice and just have fun improvising.

I saw some references to using the practice assistant, but I can’t figure out how to add a backing track to a practice Item. Not a big deal because I can play the downloaded MP3, but I’m curious what I’m missing.

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I’m always in awe of people who can pull out tunes on-the-fly from their instruments seemingly effortlessly. Frankly, improvisation terrifies me (from my time learning the piano in the past). I’ll try it on the guitar in my practice session later today.

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For me it’s one of the best things on earth :globe_with_meridians:

But then, I never needed to improvise anything on the piano @barny :musical_keyboard:

I know that I know next to nothing at all. But just listening to how notes sound together with a backing track and finding small phrases and melodies. Magic.

… and then learning by doing, inquiring and researching as soon as I ask myself why something sounded good and something else didn’t. I really like learning like that :slightly_smiling_face:

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How good are you!! Thank you. Wonderful!

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I really enjoyed this lesson and using the sound track, however i noticed that not all the notes work in the scale…am I missing something? Is it about timing to hit the right not? I also slid down a few frets and found other notes outside of the scale that fit in.

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There are seven notes and over a chord progression of multiple chords, you will come to rest, or spend a bit longer, on a note that doesn’t sound quite right.
That is exactly normal and expected.
When that happens a good note is only one step away, up or down the scale.
There are reasons that explain this which you could begin to learn, if you wish, by following Justin’s Practical Music Theory course.

There aren’t many.
Fret 2 on both E strings, fret 1 on A, D and G strings.
Is that what you tried using?
Over Justin’s backing track?
If it sounds good it is good.