Brett Garsed Discussion

[silverbeetle]

hi all - my first post so be gentle i recently got Brett's DVD which is fantastic. One thing that i just can't get my head around is what thought process a proficient improvising guitarist uses in terms of note choice.

For those of you who feel pretty comfortable improvising in modes, how do you think of the notes on the guitar - when you solo do you think:

a) i'm in the key D so i can play any of the notes D E F# G A B C#
b) i'm in the key of D so i can play in 'these' scale patterns across the neck
c) brett discussed relative pitch (i need to watch this a few more time) but this sounds cool, but could get confusing when you start slipping into other modes.
d) other??

all of the above thought patterns are do-able but then you throw in a key change or whatever and it really becomes a lot to think about when switching between scales/modes.

soloing in pentantonic blues patterns is a breeze for me - but making the transition to modal improvising is frustrating! maybe i'm just impatient

any discussion/ideas on this topic would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers, Chris

[Big Kev]

To be honest I think proficient improvisers will use a combination of all the approaches you've outlined. Players improvising in more harmonically dense styles (jazz, fusion) will likely take a more chord-centred approach though, rather than the key-centred approach your choices imply.

So, in a standard II-V-I progression in G (Am7-D7-GMaj7), if you were thinking about individual chords, you'd come across Am7 and think, 'right, what are my options here'. At rock bottom they are A, C, E & G. You can then extend that by including the rest of the diatonic notes in G Major, effectively playing in A Dorian. That much is probably pretty obvious.

You could extend it in another direction by simply adding D to your Am7 arpeggio to form A minor pentatonic, but excluding the rest of the diatonic notes. Again, pretty obvious.

Modally, any of the minor modes with an A tonic could apply (Dorian, Phrygian, Aeolian and Locrian). Of these, Dorian would be far and away the easiest choice, as outlined above. As always, you have to be careful with notes that clash, so the E flat in A Locrian would be one to avoid, except as a passing tone on the way to E, or in a faux bluesy lick.

There are plenty more options for Am7 - though many of them pentatonic - and we've still got two more chords left in the progression!

But with pure modal soloing, you'd either have to write your tunes in a modal key (Clapton's "She's Waiting" from Behind the Sun is about the only example I can think of at the moment; it's written in G Mixolydian), or switch modes over a particular chord only while it lasts. Vinnie Moore talks about this approach in one of his instructional videos.

At the end of the day though, all the theory in the world isn't going to make it sound good, so just experiment and keep your ears open.

Kev

[silverbeetle]

Thanks Big Kev for the great response! I'll try and digest all that over the weekend Might have some more questions to come if that's cool...

[n_mountain]

Hi Chris,

I've had the same questions as you in my mind many times. Now I'm not a great improviser and as you say as long as it is in one key it's ok but when the keys are changing...
Anyway I've noticed that there's 2 ways I normally improvise.
a) I know the keys and use the pattern I know will fit. This works perfectly without key changes. With key changes my head starts steaming right away .
b) My ears are not that developed yet but I can move around in small intervals (seconds and thirds) and normally this way hit the right notes. This also works over key changes BUT it will really slow me down because as I don't know we're I am scalewise (or pattern-wise) I can't play any fancy licks.

The best way I've come up so far is a combination (as Big Kev mentioned).
Use your patterns/scales. If there's a key change, then use your ears (which doesn't mean you shouldn't use them before). After three or four notes your new scale/pattern will visualize...

There's much better improvisers than me on this forum and maybe they can chime in, but anyway I hope this helps

[Bingefeller]

I recently came across some lessons on another guitarist's site that I found very easy to understand. (I don't want to advertise the site here incase it would cause offense - if it's ok for me to post the link please say so).

He basically says that jazz is about playing melodies over chords - all musical soloing is playing melodies over chords! He suggests learning the basic arpeggios then learning the 9th, 11th and 13th intervals. He also suggests playing chords on their own and then experiementing adding in notes to see what sounds good over what chords.

So, I adopted this approach somewhat in that I try to be aware of what chords are being played and I'll try to outline these chords to a certain extent - like hitting the root note of a chord as the chords change is a very simple little thing to do and can sound very effective.

Try to learn all the notes on the fretboard and be able to play any given note anywhere you want. This means that you won't be stuck in one position all the time and you can experiment with how a note will sound different in different places and on different strings.

Visualising the chord that's being played is very helpful to me also. Learn to play chords in as many places as possible on the fretboard. Then you can start experiementing what what notes sound cool over what chords - try to think of each chord as a different key where you can really experiment with using different notes that might sound bad over other chords that are in the progression. It's a case of using your ears alot!

Another thing that helped me is getting tab books or videos from players who have interesting note choices are tend to be more modal players and who stray away from diatonic playing. Larry Carlton is a great guy to learn from - see if you can get some Steely Dan transcriptions. Look at what Larry's playing when he takes a lead and then see what chords are being played by the band and try to incorporate this into your own playing. Jeff Baxter, who also played with Steely Dan, is another great player to learn from.

[ilovemusic]

i've always let my emotion decide what i play...i've been playin for 17 years and i learnt my first scale (d minor/f major) about three months ago...i feel boxed in when i play it, so i won't be learning any others...

i think of the chords and the tonality i'm playing over as a plate...and what i play is the food...if i want some asparagus, maybe some potato salad...some grated kraft processed cheese, a few slices of ham, and some beetroot, then that's what i'll have, even if i'm "supposed" to have tomato, coon cheese, and lettuce with dressing...

it's all about emotion and originality, and music...let ya feelings dictate how and what you play...


_________________
I'm busier than a one armed taxi driver with crabs...

[timmy]

Hi there! I'm also new on this forum, which by the way seem to be a really cool forum!

This topic i find interesting and it's something i constantly keep thinking about myself. A lot of interesting suggestions here already, that i will look into for sure.
My personal approach is bascially this:

1) first and foremost, trying to think melodies first and foremost in same manner as i would if i were just singing an improvised melody on top of a record playing, just hearing the notes.
2) try to play those next notes that i hear, on the guitar, 'guessing' my way 90% of the time as long as the next notes are in proximity to the ones i already played.

This is to me the most important skill to practice. I relied almost solely on that ability for many years, before i really felt the need to begin filling out my gaps by learning scales etc

The disadvantages of using this 'guessing' approach alone, for me, is that there is always a certain percentage of the notes that i hear that i will miss, my 'guess' will be wrong and i will hit the wrong note. It also has the drawback that (for me) it only really works well when playing smaller intervals. If I want to end one phrase on the 3rd fret and begin my next phrase high up on the 17th fret or something, i wouldn't know where those notes were, i would just have to take a wild guess on a random note and then play a little around before my hands would 'get back' into knowing\feeling where they are.

So the reason i started learning scales etc. is first and foremost to -bridge the gap- between what i hear and what i can play, as much as possible.
So if I'm playing D dorian, being able to 'see' where all the notes of that scale are in an area, i will make more qualified guesses as to where the notes i hear in my head are. (And if I miss, at least the notes that i play will be from the scale :p). It also allows me to make bigger jumps across the fretboard, with more confidence and a feeling of safety.

Now this has taken me quite a lot of work the past 2 or 3 years, learning about scales\modes\chords\arpeggios and how to visualize them on the guitar. It has really helped, but I guess I will keep practicing it for the rest of my life, trying to bridge that gap between what I can imagine and what I can actually play, as much as possible.

The biggest breakthrough in that process for me so far has been to actually practice chords all over the neck. (Yeah, I knew I should have learned chords much earlier, i really regret now that i didn't ). Because the arpeggios and scales are so closely related to the chords. And the chord shapes are so much easier to visualize (at least for me) than box patterns of 30 black dots. But when I can see the chords clearly, knowing where the roots are and 3rds etc, filling in the rest of the notes and the scale patterns "around" the chord shapes is so much more of a breeze.

So for me, it's much about praticing chord shapes, arpeggios and scales in parallell. I try to think that whenever i learn a chord, i have also learned an arpeggio. As far as modes go, I strongly believe in seeing them from the root of each mode (frank gambale's video 'modes:no more mystery' really helped to put me on the right track there). If im playing over A minor, alternating a little between A dorian and A aeolian, i do not think much about G major or C major. It's A minor that's the point. I see those scale shapes for dorian and aeolian in relation to the root notes of A on the neck. And I also see that they are very similiar to the A minor pentatonic, or simply the A minor7 chord shapes.



So that's just my personal approach. It's just what seems to be working the best for me so far. I have tons to learn still. Feel free to comment or criticize or give hints! It's always very interesting to hear how other people think about these things, especially when it's the things that people have discovered really -worked- for them.
(And, hoping that mr. Garsed will share some of his thoughts on the topic as well of course!)

[Bingefeller]

Speaking of modes, another guy at a forum wrote a little chord sequence that I recorded to a backing track.

||: Dbm9 | Dbm9 | Dbm9 | Dbm9 | Cmaj9 | Cmaj9 | Cmaj9 | Cmaj9 |

The chords are playing like this:

Dbm9

E--x--
B--4--
G--4--
D--2--
A--4--
E--x--

Cmaj9

E--x--
B--3--
G--4--
D--2--
A--3--
E--x--


He suggested using Db Dorian and C Lydian to improvise over the changes. It's quite challenging and forces you to think of where you are rather than just using one scale over the whole thing.