Play Better Fingerstyle Blues, Part II: Improvise

Published: Sat, 10/23/21

these guys are at catching and throwing. I know, there are errors, there are balls that make it into the stands, or at least get driven right into the gap between infielders or outfielders. But the ball seems to get caught with amazing regularity – ho hum, here it comes, lemme just put my glove up – and then pegged to first base or wherever it needs to go with a ridiculous degree of accuracy and intention.

It looks so spontaneous, but you know it's got to take practice to make it look that easy. And that the real skill lies in applying all that practice, under controlled conditions, to the  unpredictable circumstances of an actual game.

Improvisation is surprisingly similar. The best improvisation looks effortlessly spontaneous, but actually involves practicing pretty specific things under controlled circumstances in order to make use of them on the fly in an actual performance.

Also, it's not like a baseball game is that unpredictable, after all. It's highly organized, from the number of players on the field to the number of innings played to the area in which the game is played. Certain things are going to happen in a certain order.

In the same way, the song or the chord progression provides a high degree of organization when you're improvising. Solos happen within a specific number of bars, played at a specific tempo, in a specific groove, and so on.

That's why it's not a ridiculous oxymoron to talk about practicing improvisation. If José Altuve can practice throwing baseballs to first, you can practice how to play blues licks over a steady bass. And like Altuve, if you work on it under controlled circumstances first, you can learn to make it feel effortless and natural when it's time to play for real.

This morning, I'll be live streaming on Youtube at 10:30am central to talk about improvisation. If you've had trouble moving beyond rote memorization, or want to know how to take a tune you know and create your own variations and licks, today's lesson will show you how phrasing, not scales, are the real key to building a vocabulary of ideas and turning them into great-sounding fingerstyle blues solos. Starting with Thursday's arrangement of "Nobody's Fault But Mine," I'll show you what to work on and how to work on it, so you can start improvising on a twelve- or eight-bar blues with a clear, organized method.

Today's lesson is part two of a free three-part series called Play Better Fingerstyle Blues, and if you can't make this morning's live stream, you can still download the tab and watch the video on replay whenever you have the time. You can find the live stream here:

Play Better Fingerstyle Blues, Part II: Improvise

Live at 10:30am central today

Download the tab here:

Get The Tab

More soon,

David

P.S. If you missed Part I: Groove, you can find it here.