How to Expand on a Simple Idea on Guitar

I’ve been working on the Baroque Improvisation Course and thought I would share a very powerful idea with you. That is, how to take a simple concept and expand it for your own purposes and creativity. You can use this for any style not just classical.

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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