Lesson 32 of 44GuitarAdvanced

Intro to Approaches to improvisation

1:00

James Barratt introduces his approaches to melodic and rhythmic improvising on guitar, and the tools you can use to develop your own solos.

Part of the courseRockschool Guitar Grade 744 lessons (3h 49m)

This lesson is part of the full course. 1 lesson is free to watch.

from$13/month

Subscribe to Watch

Explore the course

Cancel anytime30-day refund

What's in the course

44 lessons (3h 49m) · 1 free

- 01. Welcome to the online course
  1:33
- 02. Meet Charlie Griffiths
  1:23
- 03. Meet Rob Luft
  3:02
- 04. Meet Stuart Ryan
  1:52
- 05. Meet Marcus Bonfanti
  2:12
- 01. The Pants Era
  2:56
- 02. Soma
  2:46
- 03. Broadway and 9th
  3:00
- 04. Chaos Pad
  3:00
- 05. Nachez Trace
  2:53
- 06. Times Square
  3:11
- 01. The Pants Era
  20:27
- 02. Soma
  15:49
- 03. Broadway and 9th
  9:21
- 04. Chaos Pad
  14:50
- 05. Natchez Trace
  11:17
- 06. Times Square
  11:40
- 01. Intro to technical exercises
  2:44
- 02. Rob Luft on how to practice exercises
  3:31
- 03. Group A: Scales and Modes
  2:30
- 04. Group B: Arpeggios
  1:35
- 05. Group C: Chords
  1:44
- 01. Alternate picking
  3:08
- 02. Legato (hammer-ons & pull-offs)
  5:29
- 03. Barre chords
  6:15
- 04. Vibrato
  7:37
- 05. Advanced Legato
  5:45
- 06. Natural harmonics
  3:16
- 07. Pinched harmonics
  5:01
- 08. String bending
  8:59
- 09. Tapping
  6:39
- 01. Intro to Approaches to improvisation
  You are here
  1:00
- 02. Embelleshing a melody
  5:36
- 03. Challenge: Submit your melody
  0:26
- 04. 7th chords
  6:38
- 05. Composing your solo
  8:53
- 06. Further extensions and sus chords
  4:19
- 07. Comping on two different music styles
  Free lesson
  8:36
- 08. Mixing Rhythmic and Melodic comping
  4:24
- 09. Rhythmic improv & comping
  9:55
- 01. Sight reading tips
  1:51
- 01. Course outro
  0:32
- 02. About Rockschool exams
  0:30
- 03. Preparing for your Rockschool exam
  1:28

Lesson transcript

Approaches to Improvisation

Okay then, guys.

So we're going to check out some approaches to improvisation.

The Joy of Improvisation

Improvisation has got to be one of the coolest things that you can do on the guitar. At its best, it's you taking the musical ideas in your head and transferring them immediately onto the guitar.

The Excitement of Spontaneity

There's a really cool feeling when you get that right. I'm sure your guitar heroes that you've seen live or on YouTube videos have some cracking improvisational skills.

It's something we can all hope to improve on and work on.

The Journey of Improvement

Now, those skills, although they don't happen immediately, offer some great fun along the way.

What I'm going to do is talk about a few different tools that we can use, tools we have at our disposal, to come up with those initial improvisational ideas.