Improvisation and Implementation
Know what you're doing? - Reset and start the timer, click here for a metronome, and do your 10 minutes of improvisation practice.
Otherwise, read on. |
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When we 'implement' what we've learned, we fulfill one part of the learning process
1. Learn a new skill consciously in isolation. 2. Make skill automatic in isolation. 3. Consciously integrate the skill into our playing. 4. Make skill automatically integrated in our playing. Any new skill starts off requiring a lot of attention, especially when we first learn it. As we get better at that skill, we may be able to conduct it effortlessly as long as we aren't doing anything else. But of course, for real playing, this is useless. Unless we integrate our new skill with our other skills, we may as well never have learned it. In this section, there are no levels as such. You are required to explore the techniques you have been practicing and apply them in the context of your improvisation. To get you started, here are the areas, pick one: 1. Vertical Playing. 2. Horizontal Playing. 3. Diagonal Playing. 4. CAGED Chords 5. Fretboard Knowledge. We recommend you pick the one idea or technique that is most interesting to you today, and practice that. Here are some examples: 1. Vertical Playing - Pick a pattern you don't usually use, like pattern 5, and practice applying sequences of three to make melodies. 2. Horizontal Playing - Improvise over a 12 bar blues only using two adjacent strings. 3. Diagonal Playing - Try moving from Pattern 1 to Pattern 4 using the diagonal pattern 1. Plan your route and make up some licks that make use of the pattern. 4. CAGED Chords - See how many different voicings you can use over a 12 bar blues. 5. Fretboard Knowledge - Pick a new key and position that you don't normally use, and see if you can blend it with positions that are more familiar. |
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