Be able to develop instrumental or vocal techniques appropriate for improvisation in
My weekly diary
week 1
I have uploaded a vidio of Jasper Lynch and myself improvising over the top of the simple chords from the 12 bar blues in the key of A. Since the video was taken i have learnd the blues scale and i am sure that useing this scale i will be able to make my improvisations more bluesy and maybe more rocky and for sure they will sound more melodic because there will be a lot more varioty in the notes that i am useing. In this first week of trying to get to grips of improvising i have found that it is sometimes hard to know where to go next because i do not have a very good knowlage of scales and what scales will fit over what chord progressions. I have set my self a goal for next week to make sure that i am more comfterble with improvising both with the pentatonic scale and with the blues scale so that i can show more divercity in my improvisations and so that they do not sound booring and bland.
Things that I can improve of for next week to make my improvisations more interesting.
On of the things that I saw jasper do when I watched this video is his us use of octaves and I thought that this would be a great idea to put in mine.
Learning the Blues Scale - development
Blues scale in the key of A |
This week I have dedicated some of my time to learning the blues scale. The reason that I have don this is that my research on jimmy Hendrix has informed me that both the blues and the pentatonic scale are the foundation on witch you improvise within the genre of rock and roll and of core blues.
I believe that once I get more comfortable with playing this scale at speed then I will find improvising using the notes within it to be a lot easier. Thankfully this scale is similar to the pentatonic scale so this means it is easier for me to learn than I had no knowledge of any scales. |
Week 2
As you can see in my improvisation in the video above I have made some big improvements. My work outside of the lesson last week in witch I concentrated on learning the blues scale have worked and I am beginning to exscind form the bounds of my normal ability when improvising using only the pentatonic scale.
I have kept my work on the blues scale going throughout this week in the hope that by next week I will have continued making improvements and I will find it to be a lot more natural improvising with the blues scale.
I have kept my work on the blues scale going throughout this week in the hope that by next week I will have continued making improvements and I will find it to be a lot more natural improvising with the blues scale.
You can see clearly form this video the practice that i have put in on working on my blues scale since this time last week. I now find that I am able to play the scale at a much faster speed. Not only that but I am now also capable of going back down the scale in the other direction as I demonstrated in the video.
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Week 3
This week we began to experiment with reggae improvisation
Jasper an I listened to some reggae, we listened a lot to Bob Marley. We found that a lot of the time when he improvises he dose not play very fast virtuosic things. So as you can see in the video below when jasper and I improvised we tried our best to keep things simple and have some long held notes to keep the chilled out vibe that reggae gives. I think that some of the things and the elements of blues improvisation can also be used very well in reggae improvisation Things like vibrato and bends.
Developing my improvising by learning new techniques
Vabrato
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One of the stylistic elements that Jimi Hendrix used a lot was the use of vibrato. I believe that the use of vibrato is one of the things that will make my improvising a stand out a lot more and over all will make it sound more virtuosic. I have taken the liberty of finding some of my favourite examples of vibrato on YouTube. The vision that I have decided to upload is a video of B.B Kings live performance, I decided to upload one of his live performances because you can see the amount of movement that he puts in and you can hear why he does that. The video on the top on the left of this paragraph is the video that I have uploaded of BB king and the video underneath is a video that i watched to help me get a better understanding on how to actuly do vibratos. The bottm vidio is of me trying it out. I think that once I have got a good understanding on how to uses vibrato effectively then I will be developing my improvising techniques very quickly. |
I have just watched back the week three practice session and i think it is fair to say that both me and jasper have come on leaps and bounds. We have also got our classmate chris involved in the jam. I this video you can see that i amtrying to exsperiment with bends and with vibrato. The reason that i have decide that vibrato would be an appropriate thing to put into my improvisation is because it is on of the stylistic eliments that jimi Hendrix prided himself in inboth jis guitar solos ad his guitar improvisations.
In the video below we have discussed the probgress that we have ammade as a group. In the video you can see Jordan and natily. They are giving us some positive and some negative feedback We have been told that there were sections where it was a bit sloppy and that is one of the things that we are gong to have to work on tightening up for the next week.
In the video below we have discussed the probgress that we have ammade as a group. In the video you can see Jordan and natily. They are giving us some positive and some negative feedback We have been told that there were sections where it was a bit sloppy and that is one of the things that we are gong to have to work on tightening up for the next week.
week 4
This week I think that jasper and I have made some very good improvements since our first reggae improvisation session. when you listen to it it sounds a lot more like it is actually reggae as opposed to us playing blues over a reggae chord progression. I have made a change in guitar this week as well. The mane reason for that being that I want to be able to show my vibrato in the improvisation and my use of bends. I have found that using this guitar has helped me very much with moving ford in my improvisations. It is a lot easier to improvise on than the acoustic guitar was.
Developing my improvising by learning new techniques
Bending strings
Bending strings
in your improvisation is another great way to make your improvisation flow
better and to make sure that it is not boring. I have thought about working on
my bends for my improvisation because I have been looking at a lot of videos of
jimmy Hendrix in order to complete lo1 and he bends strings religiously in his
solos. I have found that you can bend the string up a whole tone ie 2 frets, if
you have enough strength in your fingers then you can even bed it up 3 frets ie
one and a half tones. I found this out when I was watching Dave Gilmore of Pink
Floyd paling the Comfortably Numb solo.
As well as doing big bends doing small bends can be just as effective. You can bund up the equivalent to 1 fret and It can help to just give your improvisation a change of pace so that it’s no constantly all happening and you can give the listener a chance to appreciate the runs you do by slowing the speed and then going fast as opposed to keeping it constantly slow or of cores constantly fast. |
This is on eof th videos that i watched to help me to understande bends. I learned a lot from this video.
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Week 5
The video above is a video of me improvising this week over a 12 bar blues in the key of C. In the improvisations I have been doing this week I have tried my best to work in some of the techniques that I have learned the previous week. Things like vibrato on the sting and also bending the strings. I think that now that my improvisations have some more techniques like that in them when I get more comfortable with them then I will really help my improvisations more impressive.
Week 6
This is the sixth week of our practice dairy. Jasper and I feel that we have reached a good level on the blues improvisation and we feel like we still need to spend a little bit more time on the reggae. That's what we concentrated on this week as you will see in the video below. This week we have decided to improvise in a different key to the rest of the videos that we did. We have decided to improvise in the key of D this week. I am very happy with my reggae improvisation in this video I like the way that it is not fast and the tempo is slow with long held notes much like the way that Bob Marley improvises. As you can see in the video I have also been continuing my experimenting using octaves.
Week 7
The video below is the final week of our improvisation practice diary. We have also dedicated this week to making sure that our reggae is all up to scratch and that we feel comfortable improvising over reggae music. For the final improvisation on reggae we decided to experiment with a minor key. We thought that this would be a good idea because it would show that we can do more than just the major scales. When I watch back this video i am happy that I have made improvements on my reggae improvisation since when we stated. I am also happy that I am getting better at picking out melody’s using octaves not only octaves using the third and fifth string but now also octaves using the second and the fourth string. I am happy that some of my other stylistic element that i looked at in Lo1 have made a lot of improvements like my bends and my vibrato and my slides.
Week 8
This week as well as starting on reggae improvisation Jasper and I have also been experimenting with improvisation within the genre of Gypsy Jazz. gypsy Jazz is very different to the other genres were doing. It is very fast and it tends to be in minor keys. I have been lucky enough to have jasper show me the basics of gypsy jazz improvisation. If you watch the video below you can see that I am new to the gypsy jazz style and there are definitely a lot of things that could neaten up in comparison to jaspers improvisation. I have set this a goal for the next time we improvise in tis genre to make sure that my improvisations are not messy.
Week 9
Experimenting with gypsy jazz improvisations (second week)
This is my second week of gypsy jazz improvisations, i am still not vas comfortable with this style as jasper is but i am starting to feel a bit more comfortable with it as you can see in improvisation i am starting to come a bit easier. It doesn’t flow quite like jaspers dose jut but i can tell that there has been some improvements from the last time that i have improvised gypsy Jazz with jasper.