Practical Practice – Improvisation Exercises

Try these exercises over a backing track or along to music

  1. Starting at the 3rd fret of the high E string, climb the neck fret by fret. You must play every fret. Using your ear as you go decide wether you want to let the fretted note ring unaltered, or if you want to bend it up a semitone or a tone to make it fit the backing track. Start slow and add vibrato when base level intonation is mastered. You can also practice improvising randomly and free of scale shapes, bending into the key whenever you fall outside.
  2. Improvise in 3 note phrases. For the first minute, the last note must contain a bend. For the second minute, the Second note must contain a bend. For the third minute, the first note must contain a bend. Try this with different numbered groupings and putting the bends on different notes.
  3. Improvise freely, but whenever you end a phrase, you have to bend into your target end note from a fret below. Once this is mastered practice bending into your final note from a one below.
  4. Pick one scale shape to improvise with over the backing. Play the whole scale shape a fret below the original key, bending every note up a fret to bring it into the same key as the backing track. This  can be done with regular bends or prebends. Once mastered try playing two frets below.