Jazz Guitar Improvisation

Many guitarists have a love hate relationship with jazz. This isn’t without reason, either; jazz guitar is one of the hardest forms of playing to learn.

Jazz has the largest chords, the oddest breaks, the most advances concepts. In fact, jazz is the forefather to many of the styles we see as the most complex in modern music, such as progressive metal and experimental fusion.

All that being said, jazz guitar improvisation may sound like an impossibly difficult concept. This doesn’t have to be so. In fact, we can give you a few tips to make jazz improvisations seem almost simple.

The most important thing is to approach jazz improvisation as you would approach any other improvisation. Set a goal of the techniques you would like to emphasize. Outline your playing; do you want to play a linear pattern, melodic, or play in an outside fashion? Another important thing to decide is whether you would like to follow the key once you have discerned it, or if you whether you prefer following chromatics.

Once you have a vague notion of what you want to play, the next step is delivery. Decide whether you want to use a building pattern or simply flow. Keep in mind that if you play a building pattern, you will first have to assure that the pattern works with all chord voices being played.

If the key changes and you are still building your pattern, you will sound out of place and unpleasant. If you do decide to play a pattern regardless of the key changes it may be best to follow a chromatic scale, as chromatic properties lend themselves fairly well to extreme contrast in voices.

The best way to develop a good jazz guitar improvisation is to actually learn the song you will be improvising over. Not only will this help you to better understand it, but it is easier to memorize a song pattern if you know it compared to if you only study it.

If you simply study the pattern you may find yourself lost in the moment whereas learning the pattern involves muscle memory. Muscle memory will help to keep your mind aware of the keys and chords at work in a more efficient manner, as your subconscious will undoubtedly follow the pattern and rhythm at has learned.

A large part of improvising is understanding the forces that are at work while you are improvising. When you are improvising, whether you believe it or not, you aren’t actually creating all new patterns. It is important to understand this because this means that the techniques you learn during practice will be the ones coming out during you improvisation.

If you learn sloppy arpeggiated string skipping techniques then these are the arpeggios that will come out during your improvisation. The harder you practice the better you will improvise. If there are licks that you envy, whether they involve economy picking or alternate picking, practicing them will not only help you to learn them, but also allow you to integrate them into your jams.

With a little preparation and hard work, you can be on your way to better jazz guitar improvisations in no time. The first step is your though, so practice hard!

Click here to grab it now before the promotion ends...