Chris Evans - Beginner Improvisation Help SI Lesson

Introduction

After reading a few posts about "where to start" improvising on a scale and getting some PM`s regarding this I decided to see if I could help give a "starting point" guide using a short video and some explanation.

I am certainly NO EXPERT on this, mainly coz I dont really believe theres a right or wrong way to do it, and its a very tough subject to explain, doing the video helped me put this into text, its just a pointer, and may give some people a starting point (I hope) to carry on and get involved with the collabs etc.

So heres an explanation of the video in words, as the volume on my voice is a little low, and to make it clearer what I`m trying to get accross

Scale and backing used

Probably the most popular scale is the minor pentatonic, for the purpose of this video I`m using the Bm pentatonic in one position only to keep things as simple as possible :)

|——————————-7—10————
|————————–7—10-------——–
|———————-7—9—————------
|——————7—9———————----
|————7—9—————————----
|——7—10——————————-----

The backing used is David Wallimans backing from the Gilmour Collab, I recommend using this backing to jam and improvise with, its just the best! you can get it HERE.

Let's start

Where to begin.
The backing key is given, in this case its Bm so using one position (tab above) of the Bm pentatonic scale we can start.

First off learn the scale inside out, with the backing just run up and down the notes of the scale, just to get a feel and to make sure all the notes sound ok and in key with the track.

Thats gunna sound pretty boring all the way through, so, just begin again running up and down the scale in the same order but "hanging" on random notes, also try varying the speed here and there.

Next try skipping a few notes, hanging on some, back n forth between others, repeating some notes, remember to keep the "feel" of the backing in mind.

its already sounding better right? some more elements are required to get your improvisation sounding better, add in some slide off notes, some bends and pull offs, try to incorporate (using the notes of the scale) some techniques or licks that you`ve learnt already from other lessons. (I will make a follow up video on doing exactly this in the very near future)

Finally for this demonstration I`ve moved position a whole octave up, using the two same positions hopefully you can see in the video that you can link the two together to vary the overall sound of your solo, if you`ve learnt all the other positions in the scale you should be able to take the same approach as above and link everything together.

Once again I dont claim to be an expert but this seemed the only way I could explain myself.

Video

I apologise for you not being able to see my face in the video whilst I`m talking, only I had a few camera issues and once the camera was "set" I didnt want to move it :lol:

Video: Improv_beginnings.wmv ( 14.26MB )

This is purely a starting point for those that have said "I dont know where to start" if its been of help to you then thats excellent, let me know and I`ll try to come up with something that may help you further if you`d like me to

Just keep practicing