Glacies
February 28th, 2012, 09:35 AM
Two things happened since I last posted that I was frustrated with my improv solos.
One, which seems like the biggest one, I took a break. I think I was burning out a little bit, grinding scales and largely becoming "unmusical" in a word. This break was slightly fueled by my acquisition of Star Wars The Old Republic, but we won't get into that :)
Second, I got some new music.
The new music was the Dirty Heads CD. The short version was that this cd inspired me to play along with some of the songs, which allowed me to tackle larger/harder songs, which allowed me to attack some solos of other familiar music. The clencher for me was Badfish by Sublime. That's a really fun song to play with a great lively solo in it. I don't play it the same way he does (I'm pretty sure he's in Mixolydian), but I'm able to be very close and I'm able to work it out by ear and keep the general melody of it.
And this my friends, is what I needed to learn. Melody. I have to get it into my head and I have to work it out on the fretboard. If I go in without a melody in my head, it's a sterile scale run. So far the only problem is one melody will stick in my head. I'm working on badfish a lot for my band, and now when I play Dani California by RHCP, I play a Badfish solo. At least it's in key...
One, which seems like the biggest one, I took a break. I think I was burning out a little bit, grinding scales and largely becoming "unmusical" in a word. This break was slightly fueled by my acquisition of Star Wars The Old Republic, but we won't get into that :)
Second, I got some new music.
The new music was the Dirty Heads CD. The short version was that this cd inspired me to play along with some of the songs, which allowed me to tackle larger/harder songs, which allowed me to attack some solos of other familiar music. The clencher for me was Badfish by Sublime. That's a really fun song to play with a great lively solo in it. I don't play it the same way he does (I'm pretty sure he's in Mixolydian), but I'm able to be very close and I'm able to work it out by ear and keep the general melody of it.
And this my friends, is what I needed to learn. Melody. I have to get it into my head and I have to work it out on the fretboard. If I go in without a melody in my head, it's a sterile scale run. So far the only problem is one melody will stick in my head. I'm working on badfish a lot for my band, and now when I play Dani California by RHCP, I play a Badfish solo. At least it's in key...