Guitar Tricks Online Guitar Lessons

Conclusion

 
Not Helpful
Helpful
Very Helpful

I hope these lessons give you a good introduction to improvisation. I wanted to keep things as simple and straight forward as possible in order to make a decent introduction for beginners to the idea. As such I kept the options very simple. Remember the basics:



1. Find an appropriate scale (key signature)

2. Target chord tones

3. Make musical phrases



After this tutorial please continue to the next two for more specific examples of how to use these ideas to start improvising.



Improvisation in a Major Key


Improvisation in a Minor Key


Happy improvising!

Instructor Christopher Schlegel
Tutorial:
Introduction to Improvisation For Beginners
Styles:
Any Style
Difficulty:
download lesson open guitar tuner

You need to be registered to ask our instructors a question.

Questions & Answers

9 months ago
Hi Christopher, I just wanted to drop you a note to say "Thanks!" This lesson was exactly what I needed to help me wrap my head around scales and how to use them. I recorded myself trying to improvise over my looper and I wanted to know if there is a place on the Guitar Tricks site where students can share videos to get some feedback? Here's what I have recorded so far: https://youtu.be/iucKV2DIFOI?si=ScP0WjlhKA2NBriU Cheers, Jon Gorham
ChristopherSchlegel 9 months ago

Thanks for the comment. I don't think there is currently a place on GT for that function. I think what you did by uploading a video to YouTube and posting a link works fine and I appreciate being able to check it out. Sounds like you're doing great with using scale notes to follow the chord progression. Well done! Keep practicing.