Improvisation Tips For Guitar Players

Improvisation is an aspect of guitar that tends to scare a lot of beginner guitarists. The idea of being able to just make something up on the spot just seems so unfathomable to some that they have to stick with parts they know by heart. However, improvisation is a very useful skill to have, and almost a requirement for guitarists interested in blues and jazz guitar. The thing is that improvisation isn’t really that difficult of a skill as long as you know a few of the tricks behind it.

1) Improvisation is Hard if You Think it is Hard
If you psyche yourself out whenever you try to improvise, then it is going to be hard, if not impossible. This is just as true of improvisation as it is any other guitar technique, if you are conscious of what you are doing and don’t think you can do it, then you probably will mess up at some point.

Improvisation is a guitar technique like anything else. You will need to put some practice into it, and be proficient with any other techniques you use while improvising (which is basically every mechanical technique), but once you do that, it should come easy. Improvisation does require a guitarist to do a lot of ground work learning the various techniques and scales, but once you have those down, you shouldn’t have too much trouble with improvisation.

2) Improvisation Isn’t Random
This is probably the area that tends to cause the most worry for a beginner guitarist. Improvisers aren’t picking notes totally at random from the guitar. It isn’t completely uncommon for an improviser to basically be improvising with a composed backbone, and just throwing a few extra riffs in here and there. There are very few improvising guitarists that you can listen to for very long without figuring out their entire bag of tricks.

This is why you need the groundwork. Whether they prearranged it or just are picking it up by listening to the rhythm section, improvisers know what key and scale or mode they are using, which drastically limits the number of notes they can play. Any improviser also will know a few stock riffs that they can play around in that scale, so instead of picking each note as it comes up, they are plugging riffs that might be several measures long, which they can play without much thought.

3) Improvisers Always Have at Least One Emergency Riff
This is the same exact idea as the backup or emergency joke of a standup comedian, if things are going bad or they get flustered, they always have at least one joke they know so well that they can tell it without thinking. The same thing is true with improvisation, a guitarist will have an emergency riff they know by heart that they can use to give themselves time to think about what to do next. Depending on what the actual riff they use is, the audience may have no idea that the guitarist pulled up an emergency riff, unless they know that particular guitarist’s technique very well.

Most guitarists will have a couple for each scale or mode they use, so they can make using one less noticeable. A long held note or slow bend oftentimes is all that is needed, but these can be fairly elaborate riffs. It just has to be something that a guitarist knows well enough that they know they will play it well. The important thing is not to let the music stop unless you want the music to stop, so having these kind of riffs at your disposal makes improvising that much easier.