I’ve explained many techniques in the past such as chord tone soloing (target chord tones on strong beats), superimposing arpeggios and other methods but they all require one thing: that you create your own lines from the basic concepts. In general I’ve found that most people are not able to do this, in their stage of development. It’s not your fault because the stages of learning should be imitation, assimilation then innovation, in that order.

So it’s time to get out of your own head and get back to the music. Transcribing or learning solos from the masters is the most inspiring and effective way to learn to improvise. And it’s the most direct – bypassing all the teachers, misinformation, extraneous exercises and lessons. The answers are on the cds! So if you’re struggling with a chord progression, find a solo you like and learn the phrases. This is really easy in jazz as the standards have been played by all the greats. And many of the progressions are similar so you can reuse and tweak the ideas you learn on multiple songs.

In my recent post on Little Prelude in C minor we can look at the first 4 notes:

Little Prelude in A Minor (Orig. Cm)

We have A minor for two beats. The bass moves from a low A up an octave to another A. The upper melody goes from the root A, up to B, then C (the minor 3rd) then down to E (the fifth). We could choose to take this E and go up to the higher E instead of going down. We can also decide to take this through the cycle of fourths which in A minor would be Am, Dm, G, C and so on (F, Bdim, Em…). Here’s the sheet music/tab:
Baroque Idea.

Notice the concept: bass goes from lower root to upper root (low A to higher A, low D to higher D, etc). and melody goes root, 2nd, 3rd, fifth. Sometimes I go up to fifth, sometimes down to lower fifth to keep a smooth melody line. You can do this for any style. Take a small idea and expand it, twist it, invert intervals, use over different chords, different keys and so on. Take a few notes from a melody or solo you like, use it over various chord progressions, make a sequence out of it, play it backwards. The possibilities are endless.

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For guitar fretboard mastery, and soloing over chord changes please check out Online Guitar Coaching.

Here’s the tab.

The song is here.

For guitar fretboard mastery, and soloing over chord changes please check out Online Guitar Coaching.