Soloing, breaks and improvisations

[Peter123]

One source of constant frustration Is learning how to create breaks or improvisation. I just don't know where to start. I think one of my problems is I don't know as much as I should with music theory

[Denny Gies]

I began by learning to play the verse melody. Once I had that down it became sort of easy to improvise around the melody. Good luck.

[AlanN]

Take a song you can sing/hum in your sleep, such as Mary Had a Little Lamb. Embellish the simple melody with
- harmonized double stops
- neighbor tones
- tremble (tremolo)
- other shiz

It will all make sense, over time

[Mandoplumb]

Music theory helps you understand what you have done and why, but you don't need it to improvise. My dad could improvise a break on just about any instrument, in any type of music on the fly. He didn't Know the first thing about theory, he just played what he "heard".

[Don Grieser]

Someone asked this question awhile ago and I made a video for them on a song they were working on. This is a method of creating a break I learned from the late great Butch Baldassari. Once you do this to enough songs, you will eventually build up enough vocabulary to be able to do this on the fly, i.e. improvise. Hope this gives you some ideas to get you started.

[Ivan Kelsall]

IMHO - To be able to come up with a decent break in any song / tune,you need to know the melody line back to front !. In other words,you need to listen / play the tune a LOT. When you have the melody line firmly in your mind,you can then begin to work your way around it & begin to improvise - even the very best pickers have to do that. One thing that's helped me teach myself mandolin (& guitar) was having spent over 40 years playing banjo by ear. After a while doing it that way,you have the ability to latch onto melody lines pretty quickly. On simple tunes,it might only take me 'once through' to pick up on the melody. In more complex tunes,i might have to listen dozens of times & break the tune down into sections - it takes time,but i get it done. All the time i'm doing this,i'm improving my ability to do it at all. So - don't neglect learning to play ''by ear'',it has a whole shed load of benefits,
Ivan

[David Lewis]

All great suggestions.

Also, listen to your favourite players. Try and play their lines and licks. So, if your favourite player is, say, Sam Bush, listen to how Sam constructs his solos. Get ASD - the Amazing Slow Downer and play the songs through that. Copy those solos. Then, when you can play them, look at the way the notes interact with the chords. Don't worry about the terminology, though you'll have to at some point. Just look at the fingering (This is a D chord, and he's playing an F#: or even 'He's playing This Note over this chord)... As you get more competent, start to mess around with it. INstead of Sam's going up the scale, go down. If he plays fast notes, play slow ones. Take a phrase from song a, and a phrase from Song B, and play them together during Song C.
Maybe then move to Sierra Hull, Mike Compton, Adam Steffey, Dawg, Thile, whomever.


The other piece of advice is to play along with jam tracks on Youtube. Better yet, play wth anyone you can find.

Don't fear mistakes. Make them. Learn from them. Make them again.

[Mando Mort]

Pay attention to the notes in the melody and their relationship to the chords. add other notes in the appropriate chords to embellish the melody.

[pops1]

There are times I am expected to take a solo on a song I have never heard before, knowing your scales and watching the guitar player's chord changes allows me to do that. Knowing the song in and out is nice, but you don't always know the song you are expected to play a solo on, or maybe not know it well, you can still play a solo.

[marcja]

For those like me who didn't immediately know what "neighbor tones" were, I Googled it and found this helpful resource on Open Music Theory entitled "Embellishing Tones".

[Mandoplumb]

There are times I am expected to take a solo on a song I have never heard before, knowing your scales and watching the guitar player's chord changes allows me to do that. Knowing the song in and out is nice, but you don't always know the song you are expected to play a solo on, or maybe not know it well, you can still play a solo.

Pops that's what I call faking it and yes if you know the fretboard of your mandolin and the chords of the song you can do that farily easy. The problem is, about all your breaks sound the same and have very little to do with the song you are "playing"

[pops1]

Pops that's what I call faking it and yes if you know the fretboard of your mandolin and the chords of the song you can do that farily easy. The problem is, about all your breaks sound the same and have very little to do with the song you are "playing"

Considering I am doing this in a group who calls their original music, eco folk rock, it works. Most of the time by the time you get to the place in a song for a solo there have been several verses and a chorus or two sung and there is enough familiarity to play something that works with the song. Watching the chord changes helps so you can focus on as much of the melody of the song as you can remember. Other styles of music are easier, but the same principal applies. You get to listen to a few verses before the solo.

[Josh Levine]

Faking it is a part of life if you go to jams, festivals, etc. regularly. Eventually you can start to pull down the framework of a tune by ear and get closer to the melody, but if you want to participate in those and try to play breaks you have to jump in and try to fake it.

Knowing the chord tones and where the tune starts, whether it be the 1st, 3rd, or 5th helps you find a good starting point. Then you need to listen to whether it goes higher or lower and at what interval. Then be ready for the chord changes. If you can pick out certain essential notes that really help identify the song, then you can get creative with how you travel between those notes. Add in some tremolo, double stops and other fun licks such as bluesy licks and slides and you have yourself a solo. Now, after playing for many years I really want to get closer to the melody and that is satisfying, but gussying it up a bit and making it your own spin. Also if you can't find those right notes, but you can play chord or scale notes with a similar rhythm, that is a good starting point if you are just starting out.

[Mark Wilson]

Take a song you can sing/hum in your sleep, such as Mary Had a Little Lamb. Embellish the simple melody with
- harmonized double stops
- neighbor tones
- tremble (tremolo)
- other shiz

It will all make sense, over time

It's really that simple (imo) once you begin to let your imagination loose

You can also take a tune you can play in your sleep, ex Soldiers Joy, and put on a backing track for it - not too fast, loop it, and play it until your mind can imagine another way to play just one line. Try to play that one line in a new way each time it comes around. Once you get started doing that it's hard to turn off I've noticed.

It's imagination and some knowledge of the key you're in. Happy picking

[Mandoplumb]

Don't get me wrong, everybody fakes breaks. I'm probably the king of fake but recognize it for what it is. True Improvistion is faking a break and yes it's true we couldn't have jam sessions without faking but it is not the same as working out a break until you could play it in your sleep, perfecting timing, tone, notes etc

[Ivan Kelsall]

From David Lewis - ".... start to mess around with it. " Oh boy - do i mess around with 'em !!!!!. David's right - in that he means ''mess around' in an itelligent way,watching / listening to what you're doing, & finding out if what you're playing works or not.

All musicians 'experiment' with styles & techniques,it's how they develop ''their own styles''. Throughout his career,even Bill Monroe tried out different 'styles'. At one point,it seemed that everything he played had a very,'choppy',stacatto feel to it.

Try out anything sensible that comes to mind & if you can,record it - just in case,
Ivan

[AlanN]

For those like me who didn't immediately know what "neighbor tones" were, I Googled it and found this helpful resource on Open Music Theory entitled "Embellishing Tones".

That's a deep resource, thanks!

For practical neighbor tone use/awareness, a picker like Compton uses that technique often, many times in C on a tune like East Virginia Blues, bopping between the open E string and fret 6 on A string (Eb). It gives a rocking feel and can be effective when used with taste and not overdone.

[farmerjones]

For me it is analogous to developing a vocabulary. Along with knowing the scales in the various keys, I did collect a fair number of tunes. The combination of working knowledge music theory and a fair repertoire, seemed to work well. One needs pattern recognition, and it doesn't come overnight. But I always preface this by stating, never forget to enjoy what you already know. If you only know five tunes, wring them out like old rags. If you only know five tunes, work out a bunch of variations. Many tunes are Brothers, Sisters, Mothers, cousins of other tunes, get hip to the fact. And once you figure it out, keep it to yourself. Nothing makes a guitar picker madder than to point out Hero in Harlan and Paradise are the same tune.

[AlanN]

That's a deep resource, thanks!

For practical neighbor tone use/awareness, a picker like Compton uses that technique often, many times in C on a tune like East Virginia Blues, bopping between the open E string and fret 6 on A string (Eb). It gives a rocking feel and can be effective when used with taste and not overdone.

Oops, meant East Tennessee Blues...knew it was one of them states...

[LadysSolo]

For those like me who didn't immediately know what "neighbor tones" were, I Googled it and found this helpful resource on Open Music Theory entitled "Embellishing Tones".

I like this resource, it explains things very clearly. Thanks!

[Drew Egerton]

6 months of lessons with Mike Marshall will change your life, for the better

[Peter123]

6 months of lessons with Mike Marshall will change your life, for the better

Online lessons?

[ukenukem]

Not that I'm great at soloing but I do try to focus on target notes from the melody or chord tones and work around them in 3-4 note groupings (which can be repeated and flipped around) with legato notes connecting to other target notes where I can do the same. Using sections of the melody is a good place to start the grouping.

As any other aspect of musicianship, lots of time practicing with specific goals is key.

[Drew Egerton]

Online lessons?

Yes, Artist Works. You can search the forum here for plenty of opinions either way from folks about it, but I know for me even as an "advanced" player he has helped me quite a bit in the year that I have been signed up. Stuff for all levels and all types of music.

[billhay4]

I think this is a 2-part process. First (not necessarily chronologically), you need to hear a break or solo in your mind. I do this all the time. In fact, I rarely hear a song as it is being played, but as I wish it were played. This leads to all kinds of nightmares with regard to actually learning a melody. But, for soloing and breaks, you need to hear a variation in your head.
Second, though, you have to be able to play what you hear in your head, be it melody, solo, break, or just a riff. I'm nowhere close to being able to do this, though I am just beginning to be able to learn parts of song by ear. Some players do this pretty naturally. Others, like me, have to struggle with this for years before letting their ear take over. By struggling, I mean learning to read music, learning songs from scores, learning some music theory, playing a lot with people who will put up with you, etc. Then you need to learn to unlearn all of that.
Third, you put them together. This is not an instant process, but it, too, evolves over time. A noodle here, a riff there. Then, you realize you are there. I'm nowhere near this, but I am closer than I was ten years ago when I started.
Bill
Hmmm. A two part process with three parts. Sounds like a Car Talk show.