Back to the drawing board on my playing skills

[Quencho092]

After hearing foamy's AWESOME blues rendition in the PAF thread, i was simply floored by the way he just hit the right notes everywhere. I dont want to put him on the spot or anything, but that is some of the best playing i've heard in a while, and in my eyes, miles ahead of any other player i know.

This just reminded me that i'm just a wanker when it comes to playing, i just know my scales and chords, and a bunch of licks, and know more or less the chord tones that i need to hit for every chord, but i just could never really dig and find alot more in my playing besides that when improvising over progessions.

I'm guessing that the most important thing i need to work on is having the fretboard perfectly memorized so i could tell what notes are where on the spot, then memorizing the chord tones for every chord so i could know which notes to hit every time? I also need alot of help with chord substitution and that kind of stuff that sort of baffles me.

I guess the first thing i can work on is the fretboard and chord tones. Is there any method that could help besides just memorizing it before i get going?

 

[innerdreamrecords.co]

Re: Back to the drawing board on my playing skills

That's a very good clip.

He's playing very jazz oriented blues, so that's where you should look for tips.

 

[Quencho092]

Re: Back to the drawing board on my playing skills

yeah, it's like a west coast blues type thing, ala wes montgomery.

Let me see how i can explain-I really dont know all of the notes that go in a G7 on the spot-i can figure them out- root: G, 5th: C, minor 7th or b7 :F, major 3rd: B. But that doesnt help on the fly. What i have been working on is 'seeing' the tones of a G7, for example on fretboard, but so far i could only do that in the root position of the chord. Like if it's a 7th chord with the root on the E string, i automatically switch modes to mixolydian, and i avoid the 4th of the chord at all costs.

If im focused, and on the fly in the middle of an improv, i could easily 'predict' what the next note i play will sound like, especially if it's a major 3rd tone, or a major 6th (which would the the major 3rd of the IV chord). But i want to gain alot more ease in doing all of this, and being in full control of my improv, instead of relying on instinct and experience from previous jams to play what sounds good.

So how should i start using strictly chord tones to improvise?

 

[seafoamer]

Re: Back to the drawing board on my playing skills

hey dood. thnx for the props on the clip!

Ur very much on the right track w/ ur thinking. Chord tone soloing all over the neck is where it's at. I spent years doing it for many hours a day.

One thing I did back in the day was I bought & studied this book: The fifth ed. of "The Real Book" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Book

Now it's published by Hal Leonard. It used to be illegal. I bought all mine on the black market yrs ago.

I literally spent years w/ this book. I spent tons of time w/out my gtr going through each tune, spelling in my head, the chord tones for each chord. Bar by bar.
In order to play over a B-7 chord, i wanted to see ALL of the chord tones on the neck instantly. That starts w/ being able to say them lightning fast in ur head. For ANY chord.

This kind of stuff takes years.

I started w/ triads. Can u snap ur fingers and spell major, minor, diminished, & augmented triads without slowing down if someone was dictating them to u?

I used to spend as much time without the gtr as with the gtr on this stuff. I used to ride the train in to the city back in the day. I remember all the time i would sit there for 1 hr straight spelling chords. I would visualize the neck and chord tone solo in my head. I used to go to sleep this way, too.

With the gtr, i used to pick a tune, and pick a position on the gtr and chord tone through the tune without moving out of position or stopping. The key here is when the chord changes, u have to go to the next logical tone for the next chord. No stopping and going to the root. If ur in the middle of one chord when the change occurs ur brain has to find out what the closet chord tone of the next chord is and go from there without stopping.

My oven just went off, so i gotta go.
hope some of this makes sense. LMK, I'll check back.

 

[seafoamer]

Re: Back to the drawing board on my playing skills

The fuuny thing is, you have to get all this stuff 2nd nature. Knowing, seeing & hearing all the chord tones is great (& essential), but it ain't terribly musical just chord tonin' through tunes. Now, ur ear has to take over & start gettin really arsty w/ the shyt. Which is a whole other thing.

Funny & embarrasing story. When i was younger, i used to always beg my mom to sit at the piano & play random notes & i would guess what they were. I would have her give me a C. Then w/ relative pitch, i would have her play me random notes for as long as she could stand & i would tell her what they were. I got good & worked up to 2 note chords & triads. It was great cuz she knew noting about music so she used to just play really random notes, making me really use my ears & brain.

So i guess what I'm tryin to say is: ear trainin' is also the shyt. I used to open up that real book and sing the root motion of the chords through the tune. I also would the sing chord tones. I would always be working on intervals. I would break it down & work on 1 specific interval for liek months! I would sing major 3rd intervals from random notes in my head for months straight untill i could almost fart them.

 

[innerdreamrecords.co]

Re: Back to the drawing board on my playing skills

So how should i start using strictly chord tones to improvise?

Obviously seafoamer is anal retentive (I'm kidding). The way he practiced though with ear training to recognize the chord tones is great and all of the other ways he mentioned as well. My background was in classical but the same techniques apply in learning voice leading and theory. The thing I think that makes guitar so difficult is you can't see the notes instantly like you can on a piano.

I remember back in the day I used flash cards to learn site reading, perhaps there are some flash cards for guitar?

I also think the key is to know the intervals that make up chords, scales etc. - when you start thinking in numbers e.g. intervals to me it all becomes a lot simpler.

 

[Quencho092]

Re: Back to the drawing board on my playing skills

i've started to memorize the roots, 3rds, 5ths and 7ths of all 12 major chords. Im using flash cards and trying to get them very quick without hesitation. Once i get these, i'll make more cards for the other chords-diminished, 6ths etc...

What's new about this to me is the usage of actual note names while thinking as i play. I just think in intervals, like if a Bb7 is playing i'd do a hammer on from the flat 3rd to the major 3rd, then hit the minor 7th, root and 5th for example, Instead of thinking Db(h)D-Ab-F-Bb.

That's where i see the advantage of actually learning the notes, since if i know the whole fretboard and a chord is being played, i can just light up the triad or 4 notes in my mind and fire away.

 

[innerdreamrecords.co]

Re: Back to the drawing board on my playing skills

[What's new about this to me is the usage of actual note names while thinking as i play. I just think in intervals, like if a Bb7 is playing i'd do a hammer on from the flat 3rd to the major 3rd, then hit the minor 7th, root and 5th for example, Instead of thinking Db(h)D-Ab-F-Bb./QUOTE]



What ever works for you I say.

 

[JammerMatt]

Re: Back to the drawing board on my playing skills

Foamy's real secret is that he takes steroids

 

[Quencho092]

Re: Back to the drawing board on my playing skills

what i mean by that statement, though, is that it is more advantageous to learn the notes for every chord then apply that to the whole fretboard instead of using shapes and intervals as your foundation.

 

[innerdreamrecords.co]

Re: Back to the drawing board on my playing skills

what i mean by that statement, though, is that it is more advantageous to learn the notes for every chord then apply that to the whole fretboard instead of using shapes and intervals as your foundation.

I'm not much of a guitar player like foamiester - why do you think that?