Improvisation During Electric Guitar Lessons in Tulsa
Hi, guys, this is Andrea with Curtis Music Academy here with another podcast about music and about some questions that you may have as a student or as a parent at Curtis Music Academy. We do teach piano lessons, electric guitar lessons in Tulsa and vocal lessons. Those are the majority of the lessons that we offer. However, we do offer a variety of other lessons as well. Now, today, I would like to talk to you about something that I don’t know a whole lot about. And it’s the subject of improvisation. So since I don’t know a whole lot about it, I actually Googled how to improvise and I did find a really helpful article. And this is 10 ways to improve your improvisation.
Number one, sing along with your improvised lines during the electric guitar lessons in Tulsa. You’ll express your individuality more if you try this, at least while practicing. I think that’s pretty interesting because it kind of internalizes that melody more in your head. So, no, to learn transcriptions of your favorite solos. Better yet, transcribe them yourself. You may want to sing them first until they’re memorized and then gradually write them down. This will help you internalize them better so they’ll influence your own playing on a deeper level. That’s a very interesting point. And I think it goes along with the idea of what genre of music are you improvising? Are you improvising New Age music or are you improvising jazz music?
Are you improvising blues? Are you improvising rock? You can use any of these in electric guitar lessons in Tulsa. All of these are based on different scales and modes and different things like that. Number three is improvised solos with your left hand alone. In addition to developing your left hand techniques, this will focus your ear on really hearing the notes, since you won’t be able to rely only on the pattern your right hand is playing automatically. Number four, pick an energetic groove rock, jazz, calypso, lively classical and improvise a really simple solo. Have fun with the rhythms. You’ll be in more control of everything, including the shape of the lines.
I really like that one as well. I would even maybe take it a step further and say maybe take the same chord progression with the same improvisation line and play it in three or four different genres. You can do this in your electric guitar lessons in Tulsa or piano lesson. That’s kind of a fun way to do it as well. Number five, play very slowly and try to hear every note in your inner ear before you play it. This is especially important when working with challenging chord progressions. This is interesting and it will develop your training as well. Number six, work on some of your favorite music. Sometimes we’re so busy practicing that we think we should do it. We lose sight of the music we enjoy. You’ll tend to stick with a longer tune. That’s a good point.
Creating in Electric Guitar Lessons in Tulsa
So you should really enjoy the genre that you’re playing. So if you’re someone who really loves, like epic music, you can choose to improvise with that rather than trying to learn blues. For example, number seven, choose a short melodic phrase, chord voicing or progression and try to play it all and play in all 12 keys. This is really helpful during electric guitar lessons in Tulsa. You’ll experience the musical content differently as you explore the different shapes on the piano or any other instrument that you’re playing. That is a really good point because on the piano your hand position changes shapes drastically when you change keys and that might open up some other possibilities to improvise that way.
OK, number eight, to play with other musicians, you will mutually inspire and learn from each other. This one is true. I play in a band weekly and it’s fun. We just actually start improvising every single time that we get together. And it’s a lot of fun. And we have to record the sessions because it’s something that we’d like to maybe play later. And if you don’t record it, then you might forget it. Number nine, it’s a practice, a wide variety of music. If you like rock, for instance, play some jazz, folk or classical signing improvisations, the change of pace will be fun and you’ll learn some new things and apply your usual style.
I would definitely recommend this for people taking electric guitar lessons in Tulsawho are wanting to just really excel at their instrument, because if you’re just playing in a rock band, it will add some creativity. If you throw in a gospel chord or a progression or sometimes it just makes it sound more full. So I definitely recommend that one. Number 10. Here we are at the end. Go slowly and enjoy every moment. Even the challenges love what you’re doing. This is how you improve at an exponential rate. So that was the 10 ways to improve at improvising. I got this from keyboard improv dotcom and just some great tips for me as I am learning to improvise.
Many of you out there might be learning to do the same as well during your electric guitar lessons in Tulsa. So that’s one of the blessings and curses of growing up being classically trained, because when you’re a classically trained pianist, most of the time you learn music theory, you learn finger warm ups, and you learn from an electric guitar lessons in Tulsa book, you learn sight reading techniques and that kind of thing. You never really learn how to song, write or improvise. But it’s definitely some things that I want to start improvising or implementing, I should say, with my students, because I want them to be really well-rounded as students, not just being able to read music on the paper.
I want them to be able to create their own songs and understand sound and different things like that. And so throughout the electric guitar lessons in Tulsa, there’s some fun activities that say improvise using this five finger painting skill. And it really can be that easy is you learning how to just make something up that sounds good to your ear and maybe it’s just a couple of measures long. It doesn’t have to be necessarily this long masterpiece. So when you start off improvising little by little, it can make a big difference.
Another cool idea I got from another piano teacher is writing a song using multiple students so each student contributes maybe like four measures to the overall song. And it’s just kind of a fun way to get used to and get comfortable with improvisation and songwriting and things like that. So that is my podcast on improvisation. And hopefully I will let you guys know how this goes because I’m going to start implementing some stuff in my electric guitar lessons in Tulsa very soon. So thank you so much for tuning into this podcast.