Improvisation Exercises
The following exercises are designed to cover various elements of improvisation in your studies.
These elements range from ear training, to following chord changes, to breaking out of soloing habits, and more.
Any of these exercises can be applied to backing tracks, and should be in order to get your ears involved with these practice items.
If you’re new to soloing, or want to start simple, solo over a one-chord vamp with any exercise to get your feet wet with improvisation.
From there, move on to common chord progressions and full jazz tunes as you take these exercises to the next level in your studies.
Root Note Soloing
The first exercise is simple, but it provides big results in the woodshed, especially with regards to hearing and visualizing chord changes.
Pick a backing track to work on, either a chord progression or full jazz tune, and begin by playing the root note of each chord over the track.
You can play the root notes on the lower strings, like a bass player would, or you can play these notes in the upper register of the guitar.
Once you can play the root notes over each chord change in a few positions, improvise with those root notes in your playing.
You can do this by:
Ø Changing the rhythm.
Ø Sliding into or out of each root note.
Ø Changing the length of each note, staccato vs. legato, etc.
Ø Repeating notes in each bar.
This is a good warm up exercise to use in your daily practice routine.
It gets your creativity flowing, and it’s a great exercise if you’re having trouble following chord changes when playing over jazz standards.
4 Fret Soloing
In this exercise, you will pick four frets to work on over a backing track.
You can start with frets one to four, or any area of the guitar you want to focus on, just make sure you stick to those four frets in your solo.
Once you have your frets picked out, put on the track and solo over those changes without moving your hand from that four-fret span.
This exercise will expand your creativity, by forcing you to work within a small area of the neck.
As well, it’ll show you which parts of the neck need work as far as your ability to visualize melodic material around the fretboard.
Singing What You Play
One of the most important things that you can do in the practice room is to sing along with your playing.
Singing along with your soloing helps you to connect your ears to your fingers.
It also helps you develop phrasing, as you’ll have to breath between phrases when singing.
This causes you to phrase more like a horn player in your soloing, avoiding the run-on lines that can hinder many guitarists solos.
To practice singing with your solos, put on a backing track, then solo over that track while singing along with your lines on the guitar.
Make sure you’re singing the correct notes in your soloing, and if you’re having trouble singing along, slow down your lines.
Taking more time between phrases works as well, as it helps you to sing along, and builds your phrasing vocabulary at the same time.
1 String Soloing
This exercise is simple on paper, but it can provide a big challenge in the practice room when applied to your improvisational practice routine.
To work this exercise, put on a backing track, and then solo over that track using only one string at a time.
Once you’ve worked through all six strings, one at a time, you can combine two strings, and later three strings, in your soloing studies.
This exercise will break you out of your soloing habits and get your ears more involved in your soloing lines and phrases.
As well, it helps build your knowledge of the fretboard, as you can’t rely on box patterns in your soloing.
1 Finger Soloing
The final exercise is designed to break down any pet tricks or licks you’ve worked out in your playing.
It’ll also really open your ears when soloing over a chord progression or jazz tune.
It’s good to start with a one-chord vamp if you’re new to this type of soloing.
From there, you can move on to a ii V I progression or full jazz tune when you feel ready.
The goal of the exercise is to solo over the static chord, or progression or tune, and only use one fretting-hand finger at a time.
So, you solo using only your:
Ø Index finger Ø Middle finger Ø Ring finger Ø Pinky finger.
Not only is this a great exercise to break you out of old habits, it’ll build individual finger technique in your practice and playing.
Once you’re comfortable with each finger, you can then combine two fingers as you expand on this soloing exercise in your practice routine.