Practicing Tips!?!?!?!?!?!?! Options

[Saint_arc]

I have been playing for almost 2 years now. Been performing in Rock Bands for about a Year and a half now. I am about to be put in a Jazz Band and am currently playing in a Rock Band doing Cover Tunes for the most part. WHat I am getting at is my solo's are a joke, there pitiful. I really need some ideas of what to work on as far as practicing to improve these solos. There are so many things here I just don't know what to focus on. I kind of feel overwhelmed at times. The Minor Pentatonic is starting to get old for me. So any advice especially from the instructor would be much appreciated. Thanks all!!

mike

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[mattacuk]

I would pick solo lessons from the GMC video archive which fit the kind of solos YOU would like to play. Maybe take one or two to start with, and practice them untill you have nailed them, no matter how long it takes you Break them down section by section, use a metronome for the hard parts but always use the backing track.

Try not to feel overwhelmed by the volume of stuff you could be practicing, just choose something you will enjoy I might typically spend 2months to a year on a level 8/9 lesson if needs be because in the long run it will build your skills up to a new level

Why not try something easy but fun first, and work through a few. I find the methodical approach most fruitful Eventually you will build up a libary of Licks, and when your playing live you will have new and fresh ideas

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[Muris Varajic]

Hi Mike.

For a player with just 2 years of experience,
the thing you're experiencing is pretty normal,I would say.
I remember myself with approx. 2 years of experience,
it was minor pentatonic all night long.

So I would suggest you to dive into few other scales like major scale,
natural minor scale,Dorian,harmonic minor scale,blues scale etc.

These scales are pretty often used in today's music and you
shouldn't have any problems this learning them,
browse GMC for lessons with scales l mentioned,
I hope it will help,rest of it will come with the time,don't worry.

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[Ivan Milenkovic]

DOn't worry mate, this is normal. What I would suggest is to focus a bit more on scales and soloing. You already know the problem - too much pentatonic scale. So try to break out of that scale and involve 2 more notes and this will give you plenty material for your future sessions.

If you wanna learn some scales fast and do it with three note per string patterns, I recommend my modes workshop lesson.

Hope this helps mate, cheers

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[kjutte]

I have been playing for almost 2 years now. Been performing in Rock Bands for about a Year and a half now. I am about to be put in a Jazz Band and am currently playing in a Rock Band doing Cover Tunes for the most part. WHat I am getting at is my solo's are a joke, there pitiful. I really need some ideas of what to work on as far as practicing to improve these solos. There are so many things here I just don't know what to focus on. I kind of feel overwhelmed at times. The Minor Pentatonic is starting to get old for me. So any advice especially from the instructor would be much appreciated. Thanks all!!

mike

Agree with Muris, the first step is learning the scales, and getting to know 'em on the fretboard.
Also learn chord rules, which are very simple. (example, a triad is the 1 3 and 5th note of each scale degree, so if you learn a scale you automatically know its chords without even trying!)

Another is using them for improv alot!
Your licks will suck at the beginning, so I advice you to steal licks whenever you hear something you like.
This will make your improv ALOT more interesting to both you and listeners.

I hope this helped!

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[Pedja Simovic]

Hi Mike,

I would suggest learning some theory and harmony together with new scales/modes/pentatonics and applying that in your playing.

If you don't know why G minor pentatonic works over C7 or why you can play C half whole scale then you need to learn some theory and modes and apply these scales at your own pace.
Another cool thing that you can do is take advantage of this wonderful place and find lessons that have something interesting in them (which one doesn't really ? ! ? ) and apply these concepts that you learned from solos in your own playing.

Buy Mark Levine's Jazz Theory book and read the first part about intervals scales and modes as well as chords. After you do that try to use some of these scales over specific chord progression. (this book doesn't list all the scales but its great theory harmony concept and easy to read and understand).

Lets say your song was in C minor - well depending on what the chord progression is you can use all sort of different scales of it. Here is some examples : 1) C min pentatonic ; 2) C blues scale ; 3) C dorian mode ; 4) C phrygian mode; 5) C aeolian mode ; 6) C harmonic minor ; 7) C dorian #4 mode ; 8) C melodic minor ; 9) C dorian b2 mode ; 10) C hungarian minor etc
On top of all these you can use different arpeggios and different super imposing techniques . I don't even want to go into chromatic approaches and outside playing !

I could tell you so much more but I hope this was good starting point !


Hope this helped man - let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks

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