Approaches to soloing

By Darrin Koltow

There are lots of books and teachers that can help you solo better. But what other resources are there to help you take your unaccompanied guitar expressions to the next level? How can the Internet help make you a better soloist?

What *is* soloing, anyway? And, what's the difference between soloing and improvisation?

What is soloing?

Soloing is when the singer stops singing, and *you* take over the melody line of a tune. That melody line may be one you worked out before you got on stage, or it may be one you're making up as you go. If you make it up as you go, you're *improvising*. So, improvisation is a specific kind of soloing.

We're going to focus on improvised soloing here, for a couple of reasons. First, working out a solo ahead of time — memorizing it, in other words — is a pretty straightforward process: you figure out what notes you're going to play, and then you rehearse them until you can play along with the chord changes, and without needing to read the notes.

Improvisation, on the other hand, requires the ability to think on your feet. It forces you to *think* musically. Maybe most important, improvised soloing delivers you a greater feeling of satisfaction and fulfillment than solos you write on paper first.

Where to start

One of the hang-ups that a lot of players have about learning to improvise is that they don't know where to start. They might know lots of theory, chords and scales. But when it comes to "winging" it, they don't know what to do.

The great thing about learning to improvise is that there are *many* ways of learning to do it. Some ways will be agreeable to you and others won't be.

If we narrow our focus to just talk about improvising a *melody*, instead of improvising harmonies, then it gets a bit easier: we can weed out the huge selection of approaches so we can focus on just a few.

Here are some approaches you can take to improvise a melody:

Fill in the blanks: You know those long pauses that some songs have, like Elton John's "Don't Let The Sun Go Down on Me," for example? Sing those songs; when you get to those long, sustained notes or long rests, sing something to "fill in the blanks."

Another approach: forget the melody, and learn to flow arpeggios over your favorite changes. In short, this means

- learning the chords to a song

- singing a chord tone from the first chord, and then ascending or descending through the remaining chord tones

- then, when the chord changes, you flow right from the last chord tone of the previous chord, to the nearest chord tone of the new chord

When you actually do this, it feels a lot more fun and natural than reading about it. To learn more about this arpeggio flowing technique, check out these resources:

- Chord Melody Workout

- Also, the Blues Triad Mastery lesson

- Michael Furstner's excellent JazClass, at http://www.jazclass.aust.com/im1.htm

Another approach to improvising: "Baby steps": over your favorite chord progression, start by playing just one pitch, repeated as often as you like, over each chord in the progression. Once you feel good about expressing yourself with one note, move on to two, then three, and so on.

And if you believe you can't make an effective solo from one note, B.B. King and Eric Clapton can say more with one note than some symphony orchestras can with a thousand.

Improv approach next: play riffs. These are short, catchy melody fragments. Pick 'em from any song and play over a chord progression. It doesn't matter if you take a phrase or riff from Somewhere Over the Rainbow and play it over the changes to Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love. It may not even matter if the keys don't match. The point is to get playing over the changes, and listen to what you're doing.

Play chord scales: this is real similar to fill in the blanks, except you're playing chords instead of melodies. The idea is to play a scale with a chord attached to it. Here's a quick example, going from C to F

|-------5--|--8-7--5----|
|-5-6-8-5--|-10-8--6-8--|
|-5-7-7-5--|--9-7--5-7--|
|-7-7-7-5--|-------7-7--|
|-8-8------|--8-8--8-8--|
|-----8----|------------|
     C           F

Notice we're also using the flowing concept here: when we hit the last melody note, A, in the first bar, we don't just go back to the root, F, of the next chord in the next bar. We *flow* from A to C. It's a small step, not a leap.

Another improv approach: learn *lots* of melodies, and let them naturally flow out of you when playing over an arbitrary chord progression.

This next approach is pretty cool. It takes some effort, but it can open your eyes to a universe of possibilities. It's kind of similar to the "Fill in the Blanks" approach described earlier: Sing along with a favorite tune.

Pick out a certain point in the song. When the singer on the recording sings a higher note from the previous one, you do the opposite: sing a note that descends. If the singer is descending from the previous note, you do the opposite again: you ascend. Practice doing this with just one part of the song. Then, when you "wear out" that part, move on to another part.

Skinny branch

I'm going to go out on a skinny branch here for this approach to improvising. Call me a traitor or a wacko, but I'm gonna suggest that you *might* find improvising easier if you (gasp) start doing it on another instrument. Then, apply what you learn to the guitar.

I can't believe I just wrote that. But, remember the first time it hit you how confusing it can be to find notes on the guitar? Man, when you get into improvising, that initial confusion can rear its ugly head once again, big time.

Compare this to how the notes are laid out on a keyboard. If you're improvising on a tune that stays in C major, you know what you have to do? It's a total no-brainer: just play any white key! Go back to the guitar again. To improvise in C major, your mind must recall a specific pattern of notes for the C major scale.

You can't just look at the fretboard and pick out the white keys — all the "keys" (frets) are the same color. Look, I don't work for Yamaha or Korg or Roland, and I'm not suggesting you run out today and get a keyboard. But, I'm saying it's something to consider, if you're committed to learning how to get the best-sounding improvising going for you. Or, pick up a harmonica.

After you've gotten some cool sounds from your efforts on the harmonica or keyboard, I bet you'll find it much easier to improvise on the guitar.

The bottom line

There are lots of approaches to take to get into improvising. Some may not feel right to you. Some may feel uncomfortable at first, but you'll grow into 'em. The most important ideas with all of the approaches is to

- *listen, listen, listen*

- be melodic, including using melodies you already know

- use what you like playing the most, and adapt it to melodic improvisation. If you like playing a particular song for example, figure out how to "play with" the tune — to improvise with it.

Freebie web resources for improvisation

Now, onto locating freebie web resources that can help us improvise melodically.

First, there's the Playing Guitar guide. Playing Guitar teaches you the pentatonic scale, and how to use it to play over Blues chord changes. This gives you a super quick way to get some surprisingly good sounds — especially for beginning players. The cool thing about the lesson in the book is that it doesn't let you play any sour notes. They all sound good.

Also at MaximumMusician.com is the Chord Melody Workout intro mentioned a bit earlier. This one is a *lot* of fun: you're playing full solo guitar arrangements here — in other words, chords and melody, not just one or the other. And you're flowing the notes smoothly over the changes.

CMW helps you improvise by getting you to focus on the *music* instead of the fretboard; the lesson keeps all your playing in the most comfortable part of the guitar: around the 5th fret.

By doing this, you're not struggling with those extreme parts of the fretboard — near the 12th or 1st fret — that are hard to either see or play on. If you want a fun way of learning to improvise, and if you liked Blues Triad Mastery, you'll dig Chord Melody Workout.

Other web sites

Naturally, all the big guitar sites have improv articles on 'em: WholeNote.com, GuitarNoise.com, TrueFire.com, and TunaFishSandwich.com .

One of the most significant online resources for learning to improvise is *not* a guitar site: Marc Sabatella's Jazz Improvisation Primer. Its URL is http://www.outsideshore.com

This guide, which is used by schools and universities around the world, covers the elements of improvising for musicians beginning to learn it. The guide's topics include jazz history, chord-scale relationships, using theory to improvise, playing with others, critical listening, "breaking the rules" and more.

Why jazz?

Don't be put off by the word "jazz" in the title. Just because it indicates jazz, and you prefer to play rock, for example, doesn't mean this guide can't benefit you. Every musician can benefit from applying jazz strategies. Why? Because one of the main reasons jazz exists is to provide the maximum range of musical expression to *anyone*, regardless of style of music, race, religion, and eye color.

Jazz is a set of musical tools for any and every musician to express what he or she is feeling. If all you're interested in playing is Mary Had a Little Lamb, then learning a bit about jazz will make you an ace at playing that tune.

You can trust what you read in the Jazz Improvisation Primer. Marc has been a pro player for over 20 years, and placed in the top 20 in the 1999 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition. Also, he founded the newsgroup rec.music.makers.jazz.

Jazclass

Michael Furstner's Jazclass site mentioned earlier, at http://www.jazclass.aust.com/im1.htm, can also boost your improv skills. One of the approaches Michael uses is essentially the same as the arpeggio flowing described before.

You can feel secure you're getting useful info from Jazclass; Michael studied at the Jazz Department of Adelaide University, and has been teaching jazz since 1986.

Beyond web sites

Let's go beyond web sites to see what else the web has to offer to build your improv skills.

Enter the search term "group:*guitar* insubject:improvise" (without the quotations) in the search box at the groups.google.com subdomain. You'll get back some stinging words, but also nuggets of guitar improv wisdom to help you learn.

Some of the tips and observations from that search that can help you improvise include the following: (Please note these are not necessarily my opinions. I'm relating the thoughts and ideas of others here.)

- You won't improvise well by just playing off the top of your head, unless you know the ins and outs of playing the guitar.

- The best way to learn to improvise is to play with others, including playing along with recordings.

- [This one I definitely *DO* agree with] Every successful improvising guitarist has the ability to play by ear.

- Anything and everything you learn on the guitar: chords, scales, chord melody arrangements, reading — helps you improvise.

- Advice from master jazz guitarist Kenny Burrell to a fella attending Berklee: learn everything you can at school. Then, forget it all and just play guitar.

- Learn to scat sing.

More resources

"Anyone can learn to improvise. " This is from SFC - that's Sergeant First Class - Gary McCourry, whose web page is part of the West Point Military Academy site. Yes, they play jazz over there. And Sergeant Gary has some things to teach you about learning improvisation.

He gives you a step-by-step process for learning how to improvise. He relates his is not the *only* way to learn, but that it's been an effective approach for successful musicians in the past.

Pre-hearing

One of the unusual and important terms Sergeant McCourry uses in his article is "pre-hearing." This means hearing notes in your head before you actually hear them. Recognize you can *already* do this: have you ever thought of a song without actually singing it? There you go: pre-hearing.

The better you can pre-hear, the better you can improvise. Sergeant McCourry sums up the steps he gives you to improvise by writing that the more you *sing* with music, the better you get at pre-hearing.

Common elements

You might notice some common threads among the improv articles you read. For example, you might notice that lessons involve singing chord tones, "letting go," singing the roots of the chords, writing out melodies, and singing several different notes over a single chord.

The fact that these different articles use many of the same or similar approaches to teach you improvisation skills should give you a couple of things:

- confidence that, as SFC Gary McCourry writes, improv is not magic. It is a learnable, doable thing

- ideas for creating your own approach to improvising

Guitar Chords (GC) builds your chops and helps you identify the most important chords by ear. GC shows you how to substitute and combine chords; play Jazz, Rock and Blues progressions; transpose songs; put chords to a melody; apply fingerpicking, alternating bass, arpeggios, and much more.