"uninspired Sounding" Improvisation - New Member
Nick Filipoff
May 29 2021, 11:56 PM
GMC:er
Posts: 3
Joined: 26-March 20
Hey Everyone! I'm a new member here to GMC. I played guitar regularly a few years ago, but fell off the bandwagon due to some personal issues. Now I'm looking to slowly get back into practicing again. I actually bought into GMC a year ago and only used my membership a couple of times. As of now, I'm looking to turn a new page and begin playing again.

So getting to my actual question, I want to address my improvisation skills. As it stands right now, I know all the 3NPS scales (need to review them), and all the pentatonic shapes (need to review those also as I've forgotten them over time). I've always had an issue with making my playing sound creative. I can find good sounding notes, but my phrases sound boring.

I chatted with a pro musician recently and he said it sounds like I have a rhythm issue. He recommended I start to study Konnakol to get a better feel of rhythm. Is this a good place to start? What else should I study?

Even stepping into a basic jam, my playing comes off as generally boring after less than a minute. I know rhythm has to be my issue because I have a good enough ear to always land on good sounding notes. My phrasing is pretty good too (Solid bends, vibrato, can play fairly fast, etc.). I just need to work on rhythm. Any advice for me? Thank you!!

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jstcrsn
May 30 2021, 01:46 AM
Learning Tone Master
Posts: 3.622
Joined: 29-March 08
From: kansas, USA
Welcome, and, you need to give us at least audio and after that I am sure we will give you more opinions than you will know what to do with
That being said , you need to set aside 20 minutes every day for guitar, no if ands or buts . I would start small and get a habit started rather than trying to do too much and getting burnt out

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Todd Simpson
May 30 2021, 02:45 AM
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Posts: 25.297
Joined: 23-December 09
From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Welcome to GMC!! smile.gif The best advice I can give you is to jump in with both feed and start doing a lot of improv jams. You can find tons of backing tracks on youtube and it will tell you the key. When you do one, try to record it and put it on youtube even if it's unlisted so you can track your progress. Also, share them here on GMC to get feedback!

Todd

QUOTE (Nick Filipoff @ May 29 2021, 06:56 PM) *
Hey Everyone! I'm a new member here to GMC. I played guitar regularly a few years ago, but fell off the bandwagon due to some personal issues. Now I'm looking to slowly get back into practicing again. I actually bought into GMC a year ago and only used my membership a couple of times. As of now, I'm looking to turn a new page and begin playing again.

So getting to my actual question, I want to address my improvisation skills. As it stands right now, I know all the 3NPS scales (need to review them), and all the pentatonic shapes (need to review those also as I've forgotten them over time). I've always had an issue with making my playing sound creative. I can find good sounding notes, but my phrases sound boring.

I chatted with a pro musician recently and he said it sounds like I have a rhythm issue. He recommended I start to study Konnakol to get a better feel of rhythm. Is this a good place to start? What else should I study?

Even stepping into a basic jam, my playing comes off as generally boring after less than a minute. I know rhythm has to be my issue because I have a good enough ear to always land on good sounding notes. My phrasing is pretty good too (Solid bends, vibrato, can play fairly fast, etc.). I just need to work on rhythm. Any advice for me? Thank you!!

You are at GuitarMasterClass.net


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Phil66
May 30 2021, 09:18 AM
Learning Apprentice Player
Posts: 10.149
Joined: 5-July 14
From: The Black Country, England
Welcome to GMC smile.gif

As said, put some of your improvs on here to get some feedback. Improvising is harder than people think, you're basically composing on the fly so you need a lot of licks in your fingers and your brain needs to be trained to assemble them into sweet runs.

I struggle with improvising too.

Cheers

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Monica Gheorghev...
May 31 2021, 08:43 AM
Learning Tone Master
Posts: 2.320
Joined: 12-July 13
From: Bucharest, Romania
Hi Nick and welcome to GMC! smile.gif
If you can share a video will be much easy for us to help you.

I always loved to improvise but in the last 2 years I work very serious with my instructor only for compositions, so...I have a bunch of tips. smile.gif
This is my style and how I compose if you want to take a look.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgUnBr7Zj9E

Are many details that can make a piece sounds boring (repetitive licks ideas, too many picks, keeping a straight rhythm, missing of tension build, a too simple and straight ornamenting, etc).

To be able to make cool improvisations (instantly) you need to work first at compositions. The key is to understand how to build correctly a piece.
Are many details that make the difference, like: how to raise the tension in the right way and which are the perfect tools to do it (you can easily raise the tension without to increase the speed), how to avoid to make your licks sounds square, where to put the fast parts and how many because you need to maintain a good balance between melody and speed, how to use the dynamics range to get more colors in sound, how to add little nuances to change the flavor to a lick and many, many others tiny things which are very important.
Each lick must be thought very well before from all the points of view: melodic idea, picking, rhythm, technique, dynamic and the spot where is played. Then make 10-15 variations for the same lick and analyze which sound better and why.
When the sense of melody exist (I mean nice lick ideas and not wrong notes played) the only thing that can make a lick to sound less creative is just the way how is it played. wink.gif

The composition it's not an easy task but it's what make the connection between your owned skills and the ability to use them in the daily playing. With a constantly practice and a huge patience, at some point all these analyzed and cool stuffs will become natural in your instantly improvisations.

Sorry because I wrote too much but I can talk about composition an entire life without to finish everything I have to say. biggrin.gif

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Kristofer Dahl
May 31 2021, 08:46 AM
GMC Founder
Posts: 18.744
Joined: 15-August 05
From: Stockholm, Sweden
Awesome topic - thanks so much Nick 🤗

You already got some great feedback here!

Konnakol is cool, but might be a little exaggerated unless you absolutely love the sound of it. I cannot say I have ever used it as a practice method, though I know it's touted by some fusion guitarists.

This caught my eye...

QUOTE (Nick Filipoff @ May 30 2021, 12:56 AM) *
Even stepping into a basic jam, my playing comes off as generally boring after less than a minute.


...to me, it sounds like you occasionally try to improvise - but then start finding problems. So instead of jamming some more, you try to address the problem - with the hope that someday you will step into the jam and things will flow perfectly.

However to my knowledge - this has not happened to anyone...ever! The key is to stay within that jam - this is where you should practice. Even if you think it sounds bad - keep doing it. Try playing something you think is fun - and disregard what others might think about it.

My Jam School series is all about this - check it out here.

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Todd Simpson
Jun 1 2021, 02:17 AM
GMC:er
Posts: 25.297
Joined: 23-December 09
From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Can you share a youtube video with an example of your playing?

QUOTE (Nick Filipoff @ May 29 2021, 06:56 PM) *
Hey Everyone! I'm a new member here to GMC. I played guitar regularly a few years ago, but fell off the bandwagon due to some personal issues. Now I'm looking to slowly get back into practicing again. I actually bought into GMC a year ago and only used my membership a couple of times. As of now, I'm looking to turn a new page and begin playing again.

So getting to my actual question, I want to address my improvisation skills. As it stands right now, I know all the 3NPS scales (need to review them), and all the pentatonic shapes (need to review those also as I've forgotten them over time). I've always had an issue with making my playing sound creative. I can find good sounding notes, but my phrases sound boring.

I chatted with a pro musician recently and he said it sounds like I have a rhythm issue. He recommended I start to study Konnakol to get a better feel of rhythm. Is this a good place to start? What else should I study?

Even stepping into a basic jam, my playing comes off as generally boring after less than a minute. I know rhythm has to be my issue because I have a good enough ear to always land on good sounding notes. My phrasing is pretty good too (Solid bends, vibrato, can play fairly fast, etc.). I just need to work on rhythm. Any advice for me? Thank you!!

You are at GuitarMasterClass.net


Don't miss today's free lick. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

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Gabriel Leopardi
Jun 2 2021, 08:00 PM
Instructor
Posts: 36.043
Joined: 3-March 07
From: Argentina
Hi Nick! Welcome to the forum! It would be good to see a video of you improvising so we can give you precise feedback.

I only think that Kris's Jam School is a great place to start working on your improvisation skills. I specifically recommend these ones for you:

https://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Jam-Sc...ic-Development/
https://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/JamSch...lues-As-A-Tool/


On a side note, I'd like to invite you to join my mentoring program where we can work on your improvisation skills! Just send me a PM! smile.gif

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