Andrew Wasson of Creative Guitar Studio answers questions from off of his Guitar Blog website...

Q). I'm on a guitar improvisation quest for getting more connected phrasing and better sounding resolutions in my playing. I keep reading through lessons that say I need to 'target' specific tones. And, that I need to 'phrase into the content' of the harmony. But, I keep thinking that there must be a basic way to do this naturally. Is there a practice approach that just applies the guitar and my ear?
Nick -- Cardiff, Wales, UK.

A). Every musician, regardless of their theory knowledge, begins their study of improvisation by simply making-up melodies. But, since melody experimentation is the first step, in order to make it to the second step, we need to expand the overall framework. This means we need to jam; with a backing track, with another musician, and we need to play with a looper pedal. But, in the early stages of this work, it will help a great deal to keep the content within the grasp of your kowledge of theory. In the beginning, work with very simple harmony concepts. Then as you get better, and gain more experience, expand to more complex jams. In this video, I'll use a looper pedal and demonstrate this using a collection of different jams, from simple 2-chord vamps to more involved harmonies using multiple chords from within a key.
Enjoy!


http://www.andrewwasson.com/