Hello and welcome back again! Welcome to this final mini video guitar lesson in this marathon of video guitar lessons that we’ve done in this e-course. So, I congratulate you for getting this far, and I really hope you’ve enjoyed everything you’ve done so far. And of course, you know, you know by now that we’ve learned a variety of scales, we’ve done everything from basic stuff like learning how to tune a guitar, you know we’ve done chords, we’ve done strumming pattern, finger picking, we’ve done bar chords, blue scale, minus scale, rock and roll, power chords, funk, I’ve tried to give you a whole range of stuff that will give you a rounded understanding of how to use the instrument, and it’ll give you a basis for you to go and play all the songs that you want to play.
Okay, so now this brings us to this lesson, the final lesson, and today I’m going to teach you to improvise. And really in many ways, this is the most exciting and the most special lesson because what I’m going to do today is give you a lot of the responsibility, because in case you don’t know what improvising means, it means to make it up as you go along.
So what we’re going to be playing today is nothing that’s already been rehearsed or already been written. What you’re going to be doing is making it up as you’re going along, on-the-spot, ad lib in as they call it. And now, here’s the key understanding, so listen up, I want you to get this, we’re going to use the minus scale as a basis to work from so let me just refresh your memory, you should know this minus scale in the Key of A, A minor. I’ll just play it to you again so you can see. Okay, so if you need to stop the video, and just quickly remind yourself of that, I suggest you do it now.
Now here’s the thing, you can play any of those notes in any order, and they will always sound good. I know that might sound like a strange thing to say, but you don’t have to play them in order, because when we start to improvise, we can choose those notes, because what we’ve got there is a palette of notes, and you can play them in any order, and they’ll always sound good. So, let me just give you an example. I’m going to choose random notes from that scale, they must be from the scale, but let me show you what I mean. Okay, so all those notes were taken from the minus scale, but I was playing them in any order that I wish to play them. Okay, so if you want to stop the video now, and try that, use the minus scale and play any of the notes, in any order, then that is the good place to start to learn improvising.
Now the next thing I want to explain to you is that when you improvise is rather like when you talk. Because you’re going to be using the guitar as an expression to kind of talk, to express yourself through the notes. I know that sounds a little bit hairy fairy, but if you just bear with me I’ll think you’ll know what I mean. Because when you talk, you talk constantly without a break, well I do, but most people in a normal conversation, half pauses. For example, you’ll say a few words, and then you pause, and then you carry on talking, and then there’ll be another pause, and that is how a conversation naturally flows and it’s the same with the guitar, when you’re playing solo. So for example, we don’t just want to play continuous notes, we want to do, have little breaks like this.
And as you can see I was playing in little phrases like sentences then, and it made it sound a lot warmer, a lot more sensitive didn’t it? So, the other thing that you can practice is vibrato. You might have noticed me wiggling the string like this. And really, that’s all it is, it’s just wiggle, you’re just using your finger to pull the sting gently backwards and forwards. And you’ll notice that singers do that, when they hold a big note, they kind of wobble the note and it’s exactly the same on the guitar. So you can practice this by moving through the scale, and practicing vibrato in each note.
So, let me just demonstrate what I mean. And so on, all the way through the scale. And then you can apply that to your improvising, so not only are you choosing random notes, and putting pulses, you’re also using vibrato on the end of the phrases. Almost like a full stop on the end of the sentence. It’s like this. Okay, good I heard that makes sense. Now there’s other ways of making it more expressive as well, because when we talk, we don’t always talk lively. Sometimes we talk quietly, sometimes we do talk loud and it’s the same with the guitar. You can play soft notes, and you can play loud notes. And when you mix them up, it makes your playing so much more interesting, so much more expressive. Okay, so can really get into this, okay.
And also, like we learned in the previous lesson when I was teaching you funk, I showed you that you can play long, smooth notes. Or short, sharp notes, by releasing the pressure from the string like that, by pressing down and then releasing the note. So, you can do that with your improvising as well. So all of a sudden when you’re not just playing smooth notes, we’re now playing short notes as well. Okay, so now you can begin to mix all this in, and your playing gets more interesting, and more interesting. Now, the other thing is hammers and pull-offs. You already know how to that because we learned that in one of the very first lessons. And also slides, which is when you slide your finger from one note to another, like that. So, it’s that simple. You’re literally just holding down a note, and make sure the notes that you choose are correct notes from the minus scale.
Okay, so have a little practice on that, and the other thing you can do is to bend the notes which is for example if you were to hold the 3rd string fret 7 with your 3rd finger, and what I suggest you do is use these fingers on the 3rd string to help push, and you’re going to give it a pluck and bend the note up and down. Now it’s easier said than done, that’ll probably take a little bit of practice for you to get that sounding nice and smooth. So when we combine all these together, we’re using the minus scale, we’re choosing random notes, we’re playing in phrases, we’re using pulses, we’re using vibrato, we’re using hammers, we’re using slides, we’re using bends, we’re playing loud, we’re playing quiet, we’re smooth notes, and we’re playing short sharp notes, when you combine all that together, you can really have a lot of fun as a lead guitarist.
So, let me give you one more sample of a bit of improvising, and I’ll try and vary it as much as I can so you can see what I’m doing. Okay, now here’s the thing, here’s the other thing I want you to really understand, when you do this on your own, in a way it kind of sounds meaningless, because it’s out of context. What makes it sound better is if you’ve got some background music behind you. For example if you’ve got a friend who plays guitar, what you can do is to get into strums and chords along, like we’re in a Key of A minor, so you could get into strumming A minor bar chord like this. And then you could improvise over the top or, you know, if you’re more sophisticated then you’ve already got a band, and you know you’ve got a friend who plays keyboards then that’s brilliant. And then you solo in will sound even more brilliant with all the back in music behind you. But here’s your other option, you can also play along to back in tracks, and if you look on the website on eguitarlessons.com, go to the archive, you’ll find back in tracks and there’s one the Key of A minor which I’ve designed specifically to complement this lesson. It’s a piece of music that plays along, and you can practice improvising over the top. And it makes it sound like you’ve got a real band with you and it is really enjoyable to play along to. So, you know, there you go, that’s how to improvise. So, go and practice that as usual, I’m sorry I’m having to say this for the last time now, because this is the end of the 12 free lessons, so well done for getting this far. If you want to go back over those lessons and watch them again.
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