Alright so we are back for part 2 of my improvisation series.  Now, if you missed last week, you’re going to want to get started here.

It’s true that you could simply start with what I’m going to show you today but, if you do, know that everyone who started with step 1 will be moving exponentially faster than you towards the final goal.  

Okay, let’s get right into it.  This week’s exercise is simple.  You’re going to spend time every day doing nothing but improvising on an open position E-minor scale with absolutely no accompaniment.   But this won’t be noodling around.  You’ll actually be playing a solo improvisation.  You can achieve this without knowing anything other than the E-minor scale and using the open low E as a drone.  In other words, you’ll be accompanying yourself by simply hitting the low E as you see fit.  

The drone note achieves a number of things, but there are only two points that are important for us to go over now.  

The first is that, by hitting the drone E and letting it ring out over most of what you play, you will constantly be hearing each note of the scale as it melodically and harmonically relates to the root of the key.  Practice doing this enough and you’ll begin to get a musical sense for the scale that will make finding the exact note you want much, much easier.  See this as an extension of last week’s exercise.   It actually goes quite a bit further than that, in terms of connecting your ear to the guitar, but that’s all you need to think about right now.  

The other point is that, by adding the drone E to improvising with the scale, you can actually start improvising solo music that sounds good right away.  This is a very simple and age old method of improvisation.  Plus, it’s incredibly fun to do.  

I put together a tab for the scale and a video of me improvising in this method to help you get an idea of how this works.  The link to the video is below and the link to the tab is in the video description.  I highly recommend checking out the video just to get an idea of what this method is about.  

Bear in mind that I simply turned on the camera and recorded a single take of this.  It’s not rehearsed or prepared in any way.  I simply followed the sound of the scale to create something simple and pleasing sounding off the top of my head.   

As you practice this, you will get a sense of the scale and how each note relates to the others.  It’s better to let your subconscious take over and just follow the sound.  It will likely take a bit of practice to get to the point where you can even do what I’m doing in the video, but you will be surprised at how quickly it starts to sound good. 

Find the video here: https://youtu.be/uk-6bdQnfSQ 

Don’t try to do anything fancy or use any special techniques.  Keep it simple and just follow the sound.  Don’t think in terms of things you already know but simply think in terms of what note will sound good after the previous one.  Try to let it come out as naturally as possible.  This is not about impressing anyone.  The goal here is to take these simple limitations and produce pleasant sounds out of them. 

If you don’t already know the scale, take some time to memorize it so you don’t have to think about it.

Then simply follow your ear. 

Spend a little bit of time on this each day and I’ll have something more interesting for you next week.

Have fun!

Dan Mumm

Looking for something new to practice?  Check out my massive catalog of guitar related products, covering everything from Metal versions of Classical pieces, Neo-Classical Shred technique, Sweep Picking, and more!  See what’s on sale today at the link below:

www.Sellfy.com/DanMumm

So I’ve decided to put together a series here on a method that will help you to truly master improvisation on the guitar.  I spoke a bit about this method in a previous e-mail and it seemed like it was a subject a lot of you are especially interested in.  It’s possible I might make a lesson or course on this method later, but this series will be entirely free.

The goal here is to show you the tricks of connecting your ear to the guitar so you don’t have to rely on memorized licks or patterns to improvise.  This frees you up to really be expressive and play the most dynamic and musical melodies and passages over any given chord progression.  It’s also the best way to be able to improvise on the guitar without any accompaniment.  If you follow this method and stick with it, all you’ll need to entertain an audience is an acoustic guitar and some inspiration.  

You can jam along with backing tracks or with a band all you want and it’s true that you can get very good at improvisation doing only that.  However, because of the limitations of only practicing and learning to improvise in the context of a structured song and with the pressure of needing to come up with ideas in real time (or rather never being able to break out of scales, box patterns and licks), you will miss out on some of the most profound aspects of improvisation.  

If all you ever intend to do is improvise with a band, don’t be so quick to assume that this doesn’t apply to you.  What you can learn from the methods I will show you will absolutely be applicable to improvising with a band and writing music for a band in ways that will astonish and stump your fellow band mates.  The methods I will show you in this series will help you to understand what sets apart the greatest improvisers from the average jammer.

This is literally and figuratively about thinking outside of the box and taking on an approach that will allow you to intuitively learn things about music and the almost linguistic aspects of how notes relate to one another in melody, harmony, across time, within a key, etc.  This is also all about gaining an intuitive understanding of where to go on the neck to achieve notes that you’re hearing in your mind in real time.

Reading that, you may be imagining yourself having to learn a bunch of music theory – that is NOT the case.  In fact, this method is all about training and utilizing your ear through almost nothing but improvising itself.   I will definitely be giving you some free tabs and suggestions for things to learn and practice as part of this series; however, these will be relatively basic and will make up an amazingly small part of this method.  

In fact, this method is mostly about learning how to use what you already know – and that is true for anyone, even if it’s your very first day on the guitar.   This is because the bulk of the knowledge you want to be able to access comes from all the music you’ve heard throughout your life.  This method is all about learning how to tap into what you personally like most about that music and utilize those basic elements for improvisation.  Once you “connect your ear to the guitar,” this process happens automatically.  

Okay, so getting started with something you can apply today, here is something that is both simple and truly foundational to improvisation.  

All you need to do right now is spend a little extra time learning a melody on your guitar by ear as part of your normal practice routine.  This should be a different melody every day.  If you’re new to this, I recommend starting with fairly simple melodies (Mary had a Little Lamb is not too simple for starting out).  To put this in more specific terms, the goal here is to find the notes of the melody in a single position on the guitar without using tabs or sheet music.  Do this for a different melody each day. 

It’s not necessary to be performance ready with the melodies you learn.  All that matters is that you are able to find all the notes purely by ear and play them in the correct order.  

If your ear isn’t connected to the guitar at all yet, this will mean simply guessing around at first to find the notes.  Don’t be discouraged by that at all.  It may take you awhile at first to find even the first note, but the more you do it, the quicker you’ll find them.  Eventually, you’ll recognize how each note in the melody is relative to the first note you play and that will assist you in finding each subsequent note faster and faster over time.   

It’s very important that you take absolutely no shortcuts with this.  Don’t even look up what key the melody is in.  Simply use your ear and find it.  Every wrong note you hit on the way is a critical part of connecting your ear to the guitar.  

If you’re serious about following this method, get started on this exercise right away.  While this may seem trivial to you now, keep in mind that this skill is necessary for being able to truly improvise on the guitar by ear – which is what improvisation is really all about.  

Next week we will be doing an actual improvisation exercise and I promise it will be that much more enjoyable after putting the time in on step one! 

Dan Mumm

Looking for something new to practice?  Check out my massive catalog of guitar related products, covering everything from Metal versions of Classical pieces, Neo-Classical Shred technique, Sweep Picking, and more!  See what’s on sale today at the link below:

www.Sellfy.com/DanMumm