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Improvisation - Rythm/Timing

chris_is_cool

Hot Topic Tourer
Apr 18, 2020
124
1
578
37
Cologne, Germany
0
So far, Improvisation has taken a backseat in my still early guitar journey. Of course, I've been practicing my major and minor scale and modes and arpeggios in different keys, and I've been learning the solos from songs that I love... But just jamming to a backing track and coming up with lead lines on my own is something that I've neglected a lot until recently...

To change that, I've been looking for very simple backing tracks. Today, it was this one:
Very simple chord progression, makes it easy to hit chord tones while also exploring the dorian scale and "its sound". After listening to a couple of bars, I've come up with a simple groove and melody line and now...

I can't break out of it anymore. At all! Sure, I'm coming up with different melodic variations, with simple rhythmic variation variations (replace 8ths with triplets or 16ths or stuff like that), try to also work with licks I know from songs (with no success), etc... But in the end, the simple groove and melody still dominate the whole jam, and even after playing to the same backing track for an hour or so, I'm still unable to come up with something really different...

This was a long winded way to come to my actual question: Is this normal? Is this what I'm supposed to do? Just explore the shit out of a single simple idea? Whenever I look at other people improvising, they seem to come up with lots of different ideas in super short amounts of time, some of the ideas may be better than others but still...

TLDR: Do you know the feeling, being stuck with basically one idea for extended time? And how do you break out of it?

Sorry for the wall of text 😂
 

idssdi

Sold-out Crowd Surfer
Nov 11, 2019
5,336
6,754
Groningen
11
The truth is that once you improvise enough over the same thing you will always be drawn back to ideas that stick with you with only a small variation.

If you really want to come up with something else take a break for a week and during that week expend your library of licks and skills(fretboard knowledge/CAGED etc.) And come back to it.
 

Chris Johnston

Music Theory Bragger
  • Nov 11, 2019
    759
    10
    1,883
    29
    North Ayrshire, Scotland
    14
    So far, Improvisation has taken a backseat in my still early guitar journey. Of course, I've been practicing my major and minor scale and modes and arpeggios in different keys, and I've been learning the solos from songs that I love... But just jamming to a backing track and coming up with lead lines on my own is something that I've neglected a lot until recently...

    To change that, I've been looking for very simple backing tracks. Today, it was this one:
    Very simple chord progression, makes it easy to hit chord tones while also exploring the dorian scale and "its sound". After listening to a couple of bars, I've come up with a simple groove and melody line and now...

    I can't break out of it anymore. At all! Sure, I'm coming up with different melodic variations, with simple rhythmic variation variations (replace 8ths with triplets or 16ths or stuff like that), try to also work with licks I know from songs (with no success), etc... But in the end, the simple groove and melody still dominate the whole jam, and even after playing to the same backing track for an hour or so, I'm still unable to come up with something really different...

    This was a long winded way to come to my actual question: Is this normal? Is this what I'm supposed to do? Just explore the shit out of a single simple idea? Whenever I look at other people improvising, they seem to come up with lots of different ideas in super short amounts of time, some of the ideas may be better than others but still...

    TLDR: Do you know the feeling, being stuck with basically one idea for extended time? And how do you break out of it?

    Sorry for the wall of text 😂

    One thing I've found that helps break me out of rhythmic ruts is to look around my room and say what I see, listen to myself say it, and play notes from the scale with the rhythm that matches the syllables. You'll feel really silly saying 'Lamp, chest of drawers, bed, cushion' - but it makes a '1 2-and- 3 4 / 1-and' rhythm 😂

    Works wonders!