Improvisation on the guitar. Tips for beginner guitarists

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

To most people who listen to music but have never taken an instrument in their own hands, for some reason it often seems that improvising on the guitar is very simple. Indeed, it looks like this - a man is sitting and plucking the strings.

It seems that you don't even need to know the notes for this, on the guitar you just need to drive along the strings with your fingers, periodically clamping something on the fretboard. At the same time, it’s good if the performer has an ear for music, but if he doesn’t, then it’s not scary.

This opinion is deeply erroneous, before you improvise on the guitar, you need not only to learn how to play it well, but also to master different styles of musical performance. In fact, improvisation is a special way of playing, and it also has its own canons and rules.

What do you need to know to get started?

The main technique used to improvise on a six-string guitar is the pentatonic scale. In fact, this is the same scale, but consisting of only 5 sounds. The pentatonic scale is devoid of semitones. That is, it is enough not to play in an ordinary scalesemitonal steps.

What can be useful?

Every musician who performs improvisations, regardless of style and instrument, has a kind of "library", "repository" in his tactile memory.

This is a baggage of literally memorized, and not just learned, musical phrases, excerpts from various compositions, all kinds of clichés and solos. Their presence in the memory allows you not only to feel confident in improvisation, it is precisely this accumulated knowledge that gives the impression that a person is just sitting on a chair, and music is born by itself, without any effort.

What should I do?

This question is often asked by beginners in music, it belongs to a series of questions - "where are the notes on the guitar", "why do we need scales" and other similar questions. Just because experienced musicians find these kinds of questions amused, doesn't mean they shouldn't be asked.

On the contrary, the first thing a beginner performer should do is ask. Asking everyone and everything, even if the question seems stupid, does not mean that you do not need to know the answer to it.

The second thing beginners in music need to do in order to succeed in improvisation on the guitar is not to be afraid to try. A very large number of talented guitarists who perform superbly "ready-made" pieces in various genres have never played a single improvisation.

Overcome the psychological barrier between verified, practiced music anda one-time song of strings coming from the heart and soul, which is improvisation on the guitar, is more difficult for those who have already gained experience, it is especially difficult for graduates of music schools to do this.

That is, the earlier a beginner guitarist tries to improvise, the easier and easier this type of music performance will be for him.

How to practice?

There are two types of musicians who practice improvisation. The first type plays only when there is a mood, inspiration, desire. The second type is ready to pick up an instrument at any moment and perform something "from oneself".

You can often hear that you need to work, and not wait for inspiration. But this is an individual moment, already related to the work of musicians performing before the public. While mastering the instrument, improvisation on the guitar should be daily, like all other textbook exercises, memorizing clichés and patterns, with the only difference being that the textbooks should be removed.

Many guitarists advise recording interesting-sounding musical phrases that you discover by chance. This is good advice. It is important to remember what came out from under the fingers and use it in the future.

The very first steps in improvisation require only desire, attention and a recording device. Your game, no matter how "clumsy" it may seem, should always be recorded, listened to and analyzed.

How much time to improvise?

Another question often asked by beginners. There is no definite answer to it. Moreover, if a beginnera guitarist hears something from the series “at least an hour a day”, “from a couple of hours”, “40 minutes” and so on, then you should not contact the person who answered in this way for advice.

The fact is that the concept of time in improvisation is an individual matter. These are not exercises that put the hand or stuff the technique. One person improvises for hours, listening to what is played, writing down something from the result, trying again. The other sits down, plays music with a clearly audible logical beginning and end. And both options are correct, it all depends on the person.

There is only one rule regarding time - the clock must be removed. The only "chronometer" allowed when doing improvisation is the metronome.

Which genre to start in?

The question of choosing a genre is quite interesting. Of course, there are musicians who know exactly what genre they want to improvise and play in. They tend to master it, often completely ignoring the rest.

However, most people taking their first steps in music do not have a very clear idea of what they want to perform. You don't need to choose a genre. That is, the option - "I like to listen to rock, improvisation will be in this genre" - is wrong. Moreover, pre-selection often leads to the fact that a seemingly quite good musician does not come out with anything decent-sounding in improvisation.

At the moment of mastering improvisation, searching for his own style of performance, the musician does not choose the genre, but exactly the opposite. On theIn practice, it happens like this - the guitarist sits down and plays, completely without thinking about what genre the music sounds in.

Day, two, three… at some point, while listening to a recording of improvisation, a person suddenly clearly hears that he played a good blues. Or that jazz improvisation on the guitar came out from under his fingers.

The genre that has turned out by itself is the best base for mastering the technique of improvisation, it is in it that the guitarist can reach maximum heights.

Genres can be different? Which tool is better?

Many guitar beginners often worry that a certain level of mastery can only be achieved in one direction of music. Both in the performance of works and in their own improvisations.

That's not true at all. Moreover, improvisation can combine completely opposite genres within one composition. In order not to get hung up on something and not become monotonous, you need to learn clichés, phrases, patterns from different musical directions. With a variety of basic stock in the “internal library”, improvisations will never be boring and of the same type.

Almost all beginners are interested in which instrument to learn to improvise on. In fact, in order to master this manner of performing music, any instrument is suitable. There was a rather amusing case, which is in fact very sad - a novice bass player acquired the "classics", mastered it on his own, which was quite difficult for a person, not in the sense of technique, but becausefor the fact that "the soul did not lie." And it was all solely because of the desire to learn how to improvise so that the audience would “carry a piece past their mouths.”

In fact, there was no need to change the tool at all. The principles of improvisation are the same for any kind of guitar. And improvisation itself is music coming from the heart, that is, the instrument must be loved, it must be a continuation of the artist, otherwise nothing will work.

As Ray Charles said, improvisation is the sound of the ether, which, passing through a person, becomes music for a moment, and there is only a moment to hear. This phrase is the essence of this manner of performance.