Encouragement for Those Learning to Improvise: Part 1

One of the most fun techniques for a guitarist to learn is how to improvise, giving way to awesome solos, licks and flourishes.  However, learning to improvise won’t happen overnight – it takes practice and patience. How can you cope? Here’s some helpful advice from Salem guitar teacher Charles M.:

One major aspect of 19th-century Romanticism that still weighs heavily on contemporary musicians is the stereotype of the creative artist as heroic genius; superhuman beings who spontaneously create masterpieces in a frenzy of passion and emotion. To the Romantics, spontaneity guaranteed sincerity, and so it was spontaneity that they valued above all other artistic qualities.

The persistence of this idea, coupled with the fact that so much of our contemporary music is based on improvisation, can generate an overwhelming atmosphere of intimidation for guitarists (or any musician) when they begin to explore the art of improvisation.

Indeed, I have had more students become emotionally distraught over their improvisational skills than any other area of guitar playing. After all, most students want to join bands eventually, and their mates will certainly expect them to improvise something of substance at some point and probably sooner rather than later.

So how does one console such a student? Well, besides reminding them that improvisation is a skill that never stops developing and that takes a bit of time to mature, I like to point out that even some of the biggest “guitar heroes” were not quite as spontaneously brilliant as they have often been made out to be.

For example, Max Norman, the legendary rock and heavy metal producer, has stated that the late, lamented Randy Rhoads (of Ozzy Osbourne fame) would spend days, even more than a week working on a single guitar solo (Guitar World, March 2006). Norman also related that many of the other guitarists that he worked with later in his career would improvise for some time over a song’s chord progression, and he would then splice tape and edit together their best licks to create a complete solo.

The moral of this story is that maybe you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself when judging your own playing. If you jam over a progression a few times and nothing came out that’s going to give Eric Clapton a run for his money, it really is ok! It takes a while for even the most experienced and gifted of players to deliver the goods sometimes.

In part two, I will share more specific tips for helping students improvise, but for now I’ll leave you with this thought: I personally would not even try to improvise a solo until I learned at least ten solos by other players note-for-note. It is the only way to gain a proper sense of balance and proportion in your lines. So transcribe, get some tabs, whatever, just get some great music under your fingers – and I’ll see you next time.

(Continue to Part II here!)