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GMC Forum _ PRACTICE ROOM _ How Can I Improvise With Softwares ?

Posted by: waqsfeu Oct 29 2008, 01:06 AM

I am bass player but I think the question can be for guitarist player too.
My teacher taught me some arpeggios and chords. He told me to get the Band in a Box software and to try to improvise but I don't eally know where to begin ? (I have watched the Borgna lessons on this site on triads if you ask).

I put some chords in the software like G, C, G, C with just the guitar and the drum and I play anything in the G and the C arpeggios... ?
If you have advices, exercises, a way to begin it, or anything I listen to you, thanks.

Posted by: Emir Hot Oct 29 2008, 01:22 AM

Your teacher gave you a good advice. It's very good to learn how to improvise over a backing track. Band in a Box is a great program for that. It kinda replaces the metronome plus you have some background music. The point is to come up with some interesting melody and show some creativity. Try to connect arpeggios or scales in different positions. Later add some other technique to it, like hammer ons, bendings, slide... That way you will become familiar with the chord structure you're listening to and you will gain some more confidence when improvising over that progression. What does or does not sound good, well you have to judge by your own taste. Alternatively post some playing here and see what more experienced guitarists can tell you how to improve your playing.

Emir.

Sorry I have just noticed that you're a bass player.
For bass the same rules apply as I said but obviously you won't use any bending

Sorry I haven't seen it on time

Posted by: Pedja Simovic Oct 29 2008, 01:58 AM

Hello !

I think Emir already gave you great advices regarding Band in a Box, however I would add couple of things to that list.

Since you are bass player, your primary role is to play bass line that is to be part of strong rhythm section with drums.
My suggestion is to put the band in the box on and then MUTE the bass part.
That way you will get the chance to create your own bass lines and play with the virtual styles band.
If you were not very experienced with bass lines than Band in a box helps you too! Listen to the bass lines that it generates and transcribe them and learn them on your bass. Most importantly analyze them and see why they play what they play (there is always a reason behind it)
So these two things are really useful I would say.
At the end record your improvising , export it and upload it here on forums so we can check it out and point you in right direction.

Hope this was useful.

Thanks

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Oct 29 2008, 10:24 AM

How long have you played the bass man? DO you know any scales or anything, what's your level of knowledge? I think it would be good to start learning some basic scales on the bass neck, and do some theory if you don't know what arpeggios and scales are and how they are built. Also good lessons to check are Bogdan's lessons here on GMC. He made a good bass serial that can help you learn some new stuff, and ask him directly for some hand-on bass playing advices.

Posted by: fatb0t Oct 29 2008, 01:31 PM

Hm never heard of band in a box...this software looks real useful for learning. I'll have to check it out..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmd3X5_suvk

Posted by: Bogdan Radovic Oct 30 2008, 02:11 AM

Hello! Its always good to improvise! Yes , you can make the Band in a box play those chords and use appropriate arpeggios to improvise a bass line over them.Those arpeggios will be your strong notes basically and all of their notes will sound good against the chord.You can start on the root note and than develop the small melody using those notes...well just improvise and experiment...I would suggest making the interesting backing with different chord types (major , minor , diminished) to practice playing different arpeggio shapes on the go...Of course you need to match chord types with appropriate arpeggios!

Here are 3 of my lessons covering arpeggios and their extended positions :

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/misc-lessons/arpeggios-lesson/
http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/misc-lessons/arpeggios-extended-positions/
http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/misc-lessons/arpeggios-extended-positions-2/

Once you go through all of them you will be able to improvise lines all over the neck!